


Faith

by JodyBarsch



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beth not kidnapped, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, On the Run, Romance, Season 4 - AU, Sex, Violence, Walkers (Walking Dead), bethyl, on the road
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:12:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 63
Words: 159,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JodyBarsch/pseuds/JodyBarsch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Beth had NOT been kidnapped and Daryl and she had stayed on the road together: On the road, searching for safety, searching for community, keeping an eye out for their dispersed group, Daryl and Beth make a go of it as best they can, becoming a solid unit of two. Encountering both the living and the dead, they must fight not only for survival but for faith the fight is worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Having narrowly escaped the undertaker's house, Daryl and Beth have been on the road for close to two months. Every place they've found they've had to leave; there's never enough gasoline to siphon to fuel a vehicle, their feet hurt, their bodies ache, their skin's burned. They're under nourished and exhausted, but they're making a go of it, trying to keep one step ahead, looking for a place they can call safe. By this time they've got a tent, a sleeping bag, a couple flashlights, a couple more hand guns, and a cache of pecans. Not much, but better than when they'd started. Most nights they're still camped outside.

They've been moving west, and for now are camped upside the Sawhatchee creek, in which Beth currently stands, ankle deep, trying to hook some fish. Up the slope, Daryl's behind her, straddling a fallen log and cleaning and loading the guns. Beth splashes some water on her face and neck, feeling the cool drops drip down the back of her shirt. The refreshment of it only lasts a second; there's no escaping the oppressive humidity and heat. She can feel her shoulders are burning again. Georgian summers can be miserable, with little relief from the heat and the heavy stifling air, but she does not look forward to another winter on the road. The chill was impossible to shake, and the icy rigidness in their muscles made it difficult to run. They need to find something, some place. There has to be a place. They cannot go on like this indefinitely... They  _will_ find something, she tells herself. They will be okay. Safe.

"Any luck?" Daryl calls to her from up the bank where he works.

Beth turns back and sees him squinting at her; she shakes her head. "Uh, uh." She wipes the pooling sweat off her brow with her forearm and studies the ripples in the water, "The caddis are hatchin', they're not bitin' on what I've got."

Daryl scratches his temple with a revolver, "Shoot, those fish've had it  _ea_ -sy. Nobody catchin' 'em for close t' three years? They gotta be teamin'. We'll get 'em; they're just a little self-satisfied right now, gotta take 'em down a notch."

Beth turns back to the water, smiling a little. When she glances back over her shoulder she catches him still squinting in her direction; Daryl drops his head and returns to the guns. After two hours already Beth reels in her line some and sets the rod in a piling of rocks to hopefully do the work for her. She rinses off her hands in the river, and drying them on her jeans heads back up the bank to camp. Daryl doesn't look up, just keeps at his task, and so she busies herself with setting the camp straight, sorting their meager supplies, checking their water.

Eventually she rises and crosses closer to him. "Daryl?"

Daryl turns back from the gun he'd been cleaning, "What's up?" Beth just stands there. She purses her lips and she looks at him. Her eyes wide and full of something, Daryl stops and watches her. He rises, "What? Greene?"

Beth only shakes her head, she does not have the words. Daryl would dismiss her and turn away, but she's intent, and so he waits. Beth looks down, watching herself take a step toward him, then lifts her eyes and looks at him as she steps closer, closing the gap between them. What she does now she isn't certain where she's gotten the confidence to do it, but she does do it, and she is not afraid to do so: Beth reaches out, and takes his unsuspecting hand in hers. It would be a simple enough thing to do, if it was done in friendship, in camaraderie, for comfort, but those are not what moved her hand to his. He watches, like it isn't actually happening to him, his jaw set, his gaze stark. Lightly Beth tugs his hand toward her, and holds it bravely to her hip. She lifts her face up to his. Young and steady, she is open, and bright, and waiting. But Daryl does not move. He doesn't do anything — he allows his calloused hand to remain in hers, but his expression is unreadable. Daryl's stoicism once had intimidated her, but no longer. She knows him too well to be frightened by him. In two months he's been her only companion — her teacher, her cohort, her comrade, her friend. He's seen her cry he's heard her dreams and in return she's had both from him. They are honest with each other, with no artifice between them. Beth wakes and Daryl is there, Beth falls asleep and Daryl is there. Her life now is bound with Daryl Dixon's, and she does not regret it. The trust her family had put in him, that Rick had and Carol, the entire prison community, it was not undeserved. She knows him, has spent the last two months watching him, listening to him breathe, fighting beside him and eating beside him, parsing his grunts and his rumblings. She knows him. And now Beth is there, lifting her chin higher, bringing her pink mouth ever nearer to his.

The wrinkles around his eyes crease as Daryl looks down at her, "Whut 're you doin'?"

Beth's large blue eyes roll at him. "You kn _ow_ ," she reminds him. "Daryl, you know."

"Naw," he shakes his head brusquely, "uh, uh. It ain't right."

"Why not?"

"That's not what this is."

Beth's brow creases, "What do you mean?"

"I'm the  _chaperone_ ," he spits gruffly. "'Member? 'Mr. Dixon.'  _Right_?"

She smiles slowly at him, "I didn't mean it like th _a_ t."

"Your  _dad_ ," he throws at her. " _Maggie_."

"What about them?"

Daryl glances at her, he shouldn't have to be explaining this; they shouldn't be having this conversation "…It's just," his head shakes soberly, "not whut this  _is_."

" _Daryl_ ," she says softly, groundedly trying to reason with him.

Under her attention Daryl's getting twitchy, he can't even look at her. "Com'on now …" his arm swings in agitation, his rough country boy drawl brushing her off, discounting every thing she's said as damned foolishness. Anything else he might have argued is interrupted when she rises on her toes and kisses him. Beth kisses him lightly, like she's ready for him to push her off any moment, like she knows it'll be hard for him to take. Daryl doesn't push her back. He doesn't return the kiss; he makes no move at all. Daryl is stolid, and anchored in place, cut off from the world. It's not that easy to reach him.

When she pulls back she smiles at him, a little mocking smile telling him she isn't sorry and she may well know one thing which he does does not. "You don't always have to be the good guy. Daryl Dixon."

" _Shoot_ ," Daryl breaks his eyes away from her and brushes the kiss off with a few heavy-footed paces. Dismissively he swings his arm back at her, grunting, "It's not h _i_ gh school—"

"It i _sn't_?" she plays flatly. "You mean, I'm  _not_  going to miss homeroom?"

"Shut up." His eyes roll, then he moves toward her with regulated aggression, " _You forgotten where we are? What we're up against?_ " He's sneering now, in that way that he does, in that way that isn't quite cruel, but can cut if a person lets it, "You don't go 'round kissin' people 'cuz you're  _bored_."

"' _Bored_ '?" she echoes with incredulity. " _Yeh_ ," Beth Greene scoffs. "I'm 'bored'. We're on the run all the time. We've lost  _eh'_ vrybody else, you  _say_  nixt t' nothin'—" Beth watches him blink and the creases round his mouth tighten, and she shakes her head at him; there's so much he doesn't get. "I'm not  _bored,_ " she repeats. Then the dimples appear as her dour expression settles, "You're dumber than you look."

Daryl's head turns to her fiercely, he looks at her through narrow slanted eyes. Biting his tongue, he looks as though he could shout at her, but instead he huffs a rancorous sigh, waves her off and steps away. He isn't prepared for this confrontation. Brooding ans stormy Daryl shoulders his bow. "Gonna check the snares," he mutters, not bothering to look in her direction. "You good on amo?"

"N _o_ ," she insists, and demands his attention, " _Dary_ l." He stops; his turbulent eyes flash to her before he looks away again. "You d _o_ n't git to walk away."

" _You_  wanna check 'em?" he retorts hotly, gesturing crossly to the woods.

" _Daryl_."

"Stop it, Beth."

"No." Beth's watchful eyes blink. "I'h 've  _seen_  you. Looking at me." Her long lashes hold his eyes to hers.

" _No_ ," he grumbles, shaking his head. His life with Beth he'd never scrutinized, it just  _is,_ he lets it be. Certainly he adores her, but they're not this, what she's suggesting. Blindsided, the ire in him rises.

"But," she smiles, not the least dissuaded, "you _hav_ e."

" _Whudd'ya want_?" he throws at her, leaning in with a posturing rage. But underneath the affronting glare Daryl's face softens as his eyes fall on her, and Beth feels the shift between them. Beth waits, and though nothing in the outside world has changed — it's still as dangerous and as ugly — in this singular moment it does seem as though the world has stopped, and everything becomes about the space between their lips — the dwindling distance closing between them. The lock between their eyes does not break; she is not wrong, his eyes have found her in his gaze, but he'd never considered in what manner. In the instant, with her this close and this available before him, he feels his world breaking open in impossible and confounding unexamined possibilities. His eyes open anew, see what he never had, what he'd never looked to find. Charged with unleashed energy Daryl bites down on his tongue; her lashes mutely flutter. Daryl's eyes narrow as his face tenses, burning and licentious in thought—

Beth wets her slightly parted lips and blinks her consent. And then Daryl's hand is at the back of her head, feverishly pulling on her ponytail, grasping her neck, holding her face in position with his, and then his mouth's on hers, kissing her with intemperate passion.

Overcome and unrestrained, Daryl kisses her hard, though he'd never intended to do so at all. They're not supposed to be together — she's still just a kid, different from him in pretty much every way there is. But the feeling of her at last in his arms— He can't let go. Beth wraps her lean arms around his neck, stands on her toes, runs her fingers through the long rough hair at the nape of his neck, and she holds him, like it'd one day occurred to her she'd been waiting to do.

Daryl Dixon had frightened her when she'd first met him, when he and the others had shown up at the farm with their guns and crossbow. With the group they'd spent an entire winter on the road together, and yet they'd barely talked, certainly not about anything more than food, shelter, formation, walkers. At the prison he was 'Daryl Dixon': fearless and a leader. He spoke little, he didn't bullshit or second guess; he was reliable, and he made the group strong. They were family, but they had not been friends. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes he came to see Judith, but he was always far away — there, present, but distant. Daryl knew every person at the prison, but he was only friends with Rick. And Carol. And Maggie and Glenn, maybe. And her dad. Would've been with Michonne, if she was around. But not with her. Daryl fought for, survived for, acted for, the  _group._ Never just for her. Never for her first.

And Daryl never had been on her mind. Not in the way that lingers, and fascinates. Never before now. He'd made her hate him when they'd first escaped together, but it hadn't lasted, and suddenly Daryl was real. Daryl was her kindred comrade. On the road with her, just the two of them on the run, he is more than the muscle, more than a guardian, more than her only remaining companion. Daryl is—

Alarm cans jangle on the perimeter rope; their break away is immediate. With deadly force Daryl pulls the knife from his belt and jumps on the thing, pulling it to him as he drives the blade down into the skull. "Douche bag," he grunts as he kicks the thing backwards.

Behind him Beth whispers, "Do you see any more?" Daryl glares into the distance, his feet apart, ready to move, his knife poised in ready anticipation, "Naw," he shakes his head. "Don't think so." His tensed muscles relax and he lowers his knife to his side, "Think we're goo—" Turning back to her he stops.

Beth too has lowered her weapon, but more than that she's removed her shirt. She's standing there across the camp from him, small and slight, pale and pretty, thin in her worn and graying bra, and— his, for the taking. Beth watches him seeing her. He blinks, and ill at ease his facial muscles twitch imperceptibly. They've been on the road together for months, by now he's seen her in various stages of undress, but it was all blank nothingness, innocuous and utterly un-stimulating. The difference now is she's showing him, inviting him to see her. The air in the woods hums with frustration and yearning and doubt.

Almost bashfully, like he hadn't a moment ago been been capable of ravaging her, Daryl eyes lift unassumingly to her. She does not flinch under his gaze, and feeling that fires a feral charge coursing through his chest. Rueful with desire and electric anticipation, Daryl bites on his lower lip as he eyes her, still inert, at the precipice of action. Her solemn certainty is cruelly stirring. Beth laughs a little smile, "Daryl, it's ok _a_ y."

Instinctually Daryl surveys the woods around them: he neither can see, nor hear any sign of a walker. When he looks back at her, she's still smiling at him, that little sparkling dimpled smile of hers. She hasn't turned away, or disappeared. The pangs of wanting are deep and brutal as he fights against them. Daryl hadn't counted on ever feeling this way again. It'd been years.

For years now he's been keeping busy: killing walkers, looking out for the group, hunting, going on runs, sitting on the council… just, getting by, trying to find a moment to breathe. Anything else, anything resembling a real life — a life beyond survival and losing people, and doing whatever a body can do not to lose people — was let go. Women had not been on his mind. While all around him people had been pairing up, Rick n' Lori, Glenn n' Maggie, Tyresse n' Karen, Beth n'… It never crossed his mind. It was hard to justify sex as a priority with the world having gone so completely to shit.

But now she's there, Beth Greene, standing right there in front of him, with all the same losses, with all the knowledge of who he used to be, telling him to take a chance. She's inches away from him, telling him she isn't going any place, telling him to have some faith. There're reasons not to, there're things that'll be made harder by this, but Daryl stops thinking and he takes her small fresh face in his hand and he kisses her, intensely, and Beth reciprocates.

In his arms Beth pulls her knife from her belt and drops it to the ground. When she is able she breaks away from his kiss, and with wide, watchful eyes tugs open his shirt and vest. Breathless he watches as she bends close, kissing his collarbone and neck. Feeling her soft mouth on his skin as his chest heaves, Daryl brushes his lips to the top of her lovely head. And then her lips find his, and her hands in his she pulls him down with her to the forest floor. "Beth—" he breathes, "you sure?" Beth kisses him and nods. She is not a girl in his arms, she's come of age and Beth  _sees_  Daryl Dixon. He is not a man to be feared, he is a man to be rallied behind, to travel with. To befriend. To love.

Buckles and holsters and zippers and buttons are grappled with and undone, and fervidly Daryl takes this young woman in his arms, lifting her to him, and covering her completely. " _Be-eth_ …" Softly she catches his mouth with hers, and lets herself be taken in by him.

...

Spent and satiated, Daryl rolls off her, and they lie in the summer grass with the late afternoon sun beating down on them. They breathe, and catch their breath, letting their heart rates slow to normal. Beth's fingers travel to find his, and finding them she takes his hand. " _Man_ ," he exhales.

In time they rise, and dress. Beth shoots a walker with his crossbow, and Daryl heads out to check the snares. Few words are exchanged.

* * *

That night, as Daryl's cottontail roasts over the embers, Beth sits by the fire holding her knees to her chest, listening to the crickets and the sparks in the fire crackle. With nothing remaining to keep him distracted and busy handed, the camp being set, the fire lit and well-fed, the meal cooking, and their weapons amassed and sorted, Daryl wipes his hands on his pants legs, and summons it in him to sit beside her, purposefully close, though it does not come naturally. A moment or two more and his arm wraps around her shoulder. Her skin is warm, and somehow, despite the filth of the woods and travel, she seems to smell sweet. He pulls her in, closer to him so that he can feel her body once more beside his. Huddled together they sit in silence watching the low flames flicker. The nights are still warm, frustratingly so; summer has not broken. They lose themselves some staring wordlessly into the fire. In time Daryl's gruff voice breaks the silence of the Georgian night, "Never done tha' b'fore."

Over her shoulder Beth sneaks a wry look in his direction, " _No-o_ ," she partially smiles. She knows not to believe this of him.

Daryl cocks an eyebrow, "Ain't no fl _o_ wer, if th _a_ t's whut ch'ya mean."

"I'h kn _o-o_ w." She affirms, and turns her face toward his. Daryl notes how the light from the fire brightens her face and lights her soft curls in a golden halo. "You're  _o_ ld," she smiles again, her dimples deepening.

Daryl smirks gruffly. "I  _am_?"

Beth smiles again at the blaze before her. "Mm."

There's no denying he's close to double her age, and no use claiming being this long on the run hasn't taken its toll, but she hadn't even meant it as a tease, only as evidence against his claim, so Daryl drops it, and lets his arm slip from her shoulder to her waist. He steals a quick glance at her, "You. Ev'r done that? B'fore?"

Now it's Beth who looks at him. "With Jimmy?" she clarifies. "Z _a-a_ ch?" She had not. She hadn't been chaste, but she had never done that. Before, when life was still normal, there'd never been the time or the place, watched as she and Jimmy were by her father. More so, she'd felt she had more than enough time ahead of her. And she hadn't been sure she'd wanted to — all the way. After the turn, with everything else stripped away from the world, and left with nothing, it hadn't seemed so urgent to do. There had been other things to think about. And maybe, though the world was hardly recognizable as itself, maybe she hadn't been ready to give up on that part of herself, the part that let things matter, that deemed things special; the part that was thoughtful, and reflective, and believed in waiting... At any rate, she never had, not all the way, and the thought of having done so with either of them, now feels not outlandish but remote — from a different life.  _What did those boys know about her?_ Jimmy and she had come to be after a class project in American history threw them together a lot; Zach and she because they were the right age — because it was something to do to occupy their thoughts and their time that wasn't  _death_. Neither boy  _knew_  her.

Maybe no one in the world knows her except for Daryl Dixon.

Daryl shrugs his response, he wouldn't venture to know. She was sixteen when he'd met her, datin' high school boys and having had lots of friends — hard to know if then she had been 'too young', or 'old en'ough'. And Zach had been later still. Beth too shrugs lightly; she doubts Jimmy would even recognize her now. She stares into the glowing embers, her eyes fluttering in long, heavy blinks. "...Not all of it."

Daryl swipes his free hand at the grass, and pulling up a long blade sticks it between his lips. His jaw twinges. In the quiet Daryl lets his head drop back and he looks up into the stars. "It's good," he mutters finally. "I reckon; good there 're still firsts." Chewing on his blade of grass he sneaks another glance at her, "Ones you want, I mean." The world now is filled to the brim with unsought for firsts.

Beth's fingers reach out and find his, and in the solemn darkness she holds his hand as they stare into the blaze. In time Daryl ducks down and kisses her bare shoulder blade. Under the cover of night but in full view of her, he speaks the words he didn't know till now he had. "I'h love you, B _e_ th. An' not 'cuz you're the only person I know alive in this world."

Her fingers grasp tighter to his. "I love you, Daryl Dixon." Confident in this, Beth leans back against him, resting her head against his shoulder. "M _y_  dad loved you. He did. And Maggie an' Glenn." The fire pops. "You're my family."

His arm around her, his hand in hers, Daryl listens for walkers, and thinks about the touch of her lips against his. "Go t' sleep, I'll take this watch."


	2. Chapter 2

After, little changed with them, except they stand a little closer, hold each other's eyes a little longer, and now every night bed down together. It is easy to live this way together, natural. All awkwardness and adjustments had been made long before this point, during their first days out together. Long since the fire they'd been in league, long since the funeral home they'd been in sync. Now, with this thing between them, everything falls into place and they stand together a strong synchronous unit.

Daryl would not have chosen Beth Greene as his fellow on the road — were there such things as choices left — but through these months as refugees on the run she had proven herself, as a comrade, as a road soldier, as a companion. Though she is not big she is fast; though her muscles and build are small she is strong-willed and resolute. The girl is steadfast. And now, now that he loves her,  _knows_  that he loves her, he can't help but to.

 _For how does a person not love the sun in a world of darkness? Or the North Star when_ _he's lost? Or the line holding him fixed when he's become untethered? How does a person_ not _love Beth Greene?_

He cherishes her above all else.

From the beginning, from their first day on the run, he had taken the lead — protecting her, taking her kills on top of his own. He'd had no choice: protect her like he would himself or she'd be gone, and he'd be left on his own, alone, cold and hardened — his brother with one hand more. Looking out for Beth had in some part always been looking out for Daryl. But it's more than than that now, much more than protecting the group, than keeping some shred of humanity alive through her. More than looking after Hershel's younger daughter. Her survival is his survival, measured maybe not in breaths, but by everything else that matters.

He needs her, fearing what he would become if he lost her now —  _Rick at his worst? Or something all together darker, more dangerous, _unreachable,_ and utterly unredeemable?_Without question he cannot leave her. Changed as she has, Elizabeth Ann Greene is not built to be the last man standing. If the world as it stands does not destroy her, the people left standing in it surely will. Daryl cannot see surviving past her, and he cannot hope she'd survive long past him, so with little choice but this, he trudges on, with her at his side, believing that somehow against the odds they will come through this together, as a unit, as they seem meant to be.

They stay off the roads, and out of the towns, except for when a run is all but vital; they've both had their fill of other people. Though there may be strength in numbers there's no telling who those numbers would be. Strangers don't seem worth the risk of walking into something they can't get out of. And so it remains two pairs of booted feet trekking across the countryside, plowing through tall grass, slogging through marshes, tramping through the wilderness, one after another, one beside the other. And as they toil on, Beth is no longer left to thrill at the occasions he happens to touch her elbow or her shoulder in passing moments of direction or assistance; no longer does she have to replay the feel of his arm sturdily wrapped around her waist, supporting her as she walked on her crumpled ankle months back. Being touched by him no longer has to be left up to happenstance; rather they've never had such access to something or someone more than they do with each other. If Beth wants to take his hand or feel his lips on hers, she does. If Daryl needs to check she's real he merely reaches out to feel her. Oftentimes he'll idly grasp the back of her neck, or tug on the back loop of her jeans as she passes, or run a gnarled weathered index finger down the length of her sweet hominy hair.

It's been a fortnight of this, and it feels like a lifetime. Not in length of time maybe, but as the order of things.

But unity is not tranquility. And Daryl especially is not without crises of faith. He's lost everything good he's ever had, everything and everyone he's ever wanted have left or been taken away too soon.

The absences haunt him.

_... If Merle did not last this world, how possibly can Beth? ..._

There are times she finds him brooding, silent for hours, glowering at the unknowable future ahead of them, figuring out some balancing equation only intelligible in his own burdened mind:  _If he surrenders what is most dear, will it not be taken away from him so irrevocably? ... If he stops this with her now, keeping her only as a companion, at the price of his pleasure and contentment, will it buy her time? ..._

He gets this way after close calls sometimes. Like today: They were stupid, and not fast enough, and they got separated by a group of them, maybe twelve.  _Careless._

_Beth had backed herself against a tree, slashing at the walkers as they advanced, gouging in skulls and eyes and brains where she could, while he swung madly but with deliberate calculation back and forth, this way and that, crushing heads with the blunt force of his bow. He couldn't get at her, he couldn't clear fast enough. He saw them closing in around her — _fucking stupid to break formation!_  — all it could take is one foul scratch._

Beth shoved one back from her with all her might and grabbed another, much smaller, one towards her, driving her blade in hard and true, in and out so fast, catching no resistance on her quick retraction. He didn't see what followed. When he next looked in her direction she was no longer visible. Gone. He hoped she'd run but he couldn't tell if she had. There had been no scream. No cry for help. Daryl kicked back a massive hulking walker, giving himself time to load a bolt he pulled from a splattered skull and shoot it dead between the decaying caverns that once had been eyes before the thing lumbered back at him. Still he couldn't see her. Only walkers, in every direction. His mind seized and churned as he fought the dead things off:  _Surely she would scream if she were caught. Surely she would run if the opportunity were there. Surely she would not go down in a vacuum of silence. Girls do not just disappear..._  Fighting on he'd bashed in another walker then made a run for it, cutting back through the woods towards her direction, towards where she would have run, every step keeping a trained eye watchful for her tracks, three walkers still at his heels.

She had run; he crossed her trail. But she had been dragging something by the looks of it — there, the carcass of that smaller one she'd killed. No doubt she'd clung to it as a shield to get herself out of the pack.  _Clever girl._  But clear there in her tracks she had stumbled and hit the ground; something had been in pursuit of her. The frantic scrambling was marked all over the forest floor around him. Daryl had pressed on then, keeping his pace quick, running to catch up with her, running to outpace the walkers following behind him.

He'd found her, maybe a quarter mile from the initial attack zone, on her knees, finishing off a walker, plunging her blade in through its skull. The kill complete and her adrenaline racing, she had been quickly on her feet again, geared up and set to double back to him when she nearly ran into him.

"Beth!" he'd shouted. "Run!"

And she did. The woods were not clear yet and Beth ran, knife in hand, bounding over fallen tree trunks and scrambling through brush and brier. Daryl followed, but not before seeing again what Beth had used as cover — the form of what once had been a girl.

Beth had run. And so had he. And they had made it out. They got away, again, but it had been close. When they were clear, panting and heaving, trying to catch their breaths, he saw the tear in her sleeve, the bruises already forming on her wrists and forearms. Her life had been in true jeopardy. And if things had gone wrong, if she couldn't have handled it, he wouldn't have been able to get to her in time. ...  _He'd let the prison down, what good is he, or any of this, if he can't keep one girl alive? One person aside himself?_

The help he'd given at the prison? The people he'd brought in? It was nothing. In the end, when it mattered, who had he really saved? The names, and faces, had run mercilessly through his head as he and Beth moved on from there, trudging onward through the woods for most of the day.  _Sophia ... Dale ... Andrea ... Merle ... Hershel ... Everyone ..._

Finally they had come to a cluster of saplings near a massive old blackjack oak that together formed something of a natural barrier on one side. There they've been sitting, within the borders of their hastily strung alert line, quietly regrouping.

Occupying his hands with the methodic sharpening of his knife, Daryl reflects ruefully on how close a run-in this had been. His mind's eye brings back the image of Beth's tactical kill: age no longer determinable, but by the size and the look of the clothes and shoes a teenager, maybe fourteen, maybe less. That Beth had not only killed her, but employed her body said a lot. Beth takes it hardest when encountered with the young ones; she doesn't like to be the one to kill them, when given the preference. Despite the danger they pose her empathy for them remains acutely in tact. But in dire straits she had used her head and acted quickly; she had gotten herself out. She had done this to survive, but it meant that it had been close. Had there been no small walker — and given what became of most children, either at the hands of their parents or at the claws of the walkers, nintey-nine times out of a hundred there won't be — she might not have gotten away. Not this time.

And so he broods. While Beth seems demonstrably unaffected. Which gets under his skin; he doesn't like her getting cavalier, if that's what this is.

Daryl paces. Beth watches.

"Daryl." She speaks his name. But Daryl shakes his head and keeps pacing. He's in his head, and he's letting things get to him.

She reaches out and touches her fingers to his hand as he passes, gently trying to keep him in place. At her touch Daryl lets himself linger a second or two, his fingertips momentarily intertwining with hers, but shortly he strides on, letting the connection between them drop. She can see his mind's in turmoil, and wishes he'd only speak the words building in him. "Daryl."

He paces, tears off a low branch and chucks it into the woods. He's got to get his head straight. He's got to reconcile himself with her and with this world, or he'll never be able to stand it, or know a moment's peace. "I love you, Beth," he assert definitively as he turns from her. "I do, but, things don't work in this world like that anymore. They just don't." The man's voice drops some, "Nuthin' ends well."

"What about Maggie and Glenn?" her small brightly defiant voice counters.

"What about 'em?" he volleys back.

"They could still be alive."

"This  _could_ all be just a bad dream," he charges rhetorically. "I c'n pinch ya? Ya can find out?"

"Daryl, stop it." She looks at him, squinting through the sunlight. "Do you want me to leave you alone? Is that what you're saying? Go back to before?"

Daryl exhales, he isn't saying that. Being left alone is exactly what he does not want, never wants.  _God, never let Beth Greene leave him alone_. He doesn't know what he's saying exactly, but he knows he cannot lose her. He's pretty sure one more loss, and hers especially, might kill him; he can't be left standing there if Beth disappears, he couldn't take it. He can't be like what she'd said — he can't be the last man standing. Daryl shakes his head and grunts, "Mm'dunno."

"You can't change anythin'," she insists. "The turn, the farm getttin' overrun, the outbreak at the prison, the, the governor—" Daryl grits at the mention of his name "— we couldn't change any of it. It's not our fault." She looks at him, "It's not. ... You don't have to worry." Daryl bristles, all he does is worry. This thing with her, it just makes things worse. Harder. "You're not responsible," she tells him. "And," her eyes flit to his, that small half smile of hers breaks across her somber face, "if we're not living, why are we fightin' to stay alive?"

"This isn't a soap opera," he hurls at her brusquely. "We're not here tuh, tuh—"

"Have a  _li-afe_?" she challenges. Taking the slightest step forward, Beth does not flinch from looking him in the eye. As he is volatile and ill at ease, she is calm and certain. "You gotta take a risk, Daryl. You've gotta. And—" she cuts his rebuttal off, "I'm not talkin' about out there, with the walkers and the—" she hesitates over the word for the people in the world, people like the governor, and Randall's group "—  _others_. You do that, I know. You've always done it. That's not what I'm talkin' about." His jaw set and rigid, he hazards a cagey glance at her and her impregnable conviction; riled and circumspect, Daryl hears her out but withholds judgment on what she's saying. "You can have this," she tells him. "We can be together. We can still be happy. Everythin's not gone."

Swiftly Daryl's eyes shift away from her at the sound of something only an attuned ear would hear; with haste he raises his bow with rote immediacy and dispassionately shoots and kills a forward stumbling walker. Daryl scans the horizon; when satisfied, he lowers his bow and shifts his eyes back to her. Slowly the words come, after his restless uncertain eyes struggle to hold her in his gaze. "Ya think?"

Beth swallows and nods at him, assured. "I do."

That'll have to do. What else is there? Beth's faith is all they have. His bow and her belief. Daryl'll have to let that be enough. He can't fight the world and himself; blinking and setting his jaw, he shifts his stance, unbristles and stands down, and slings the crossbow around to his back. He shuts it down, all of it, and resolvedly fixes his eyes on the road and on her; fixes his mind on survival and on her. He'd never been one to second guess himself, or get up in his head. By nature Daryl Dixon is a linear thinker who takes forward action, taking things as they come, seeing the long view of things, and saying 'fuck it' to the world. This day saw him bested and overtaken by irrational fear, but he shuts it out now, and reverts back to his true nature.

Daryl looks at her, and quietly his displaced passion and unrest refocus now on Beth. He steps towards her, the singular intent in his stone blue eyes hooded beneath his knitted brow. Wordlessly he takes tight hold of her at the hips. Slipping his hands onto her, feeling the sturdiness of her frame there beneath his grip, Daryl inches closer. He mutters, looking into her large blue eyes looking right up at him, "M'kay." Holding her there to him Daryl breathes, pulls her in, and kisses her, holding her fast to him. And though he's kissed her before, and with more passion than this, and hell, they've slept together even, there's a change here. In this Daryl's letting her in, more than he has so before, laying down walls that have been up for decades. He's not alone, she's with him. And she is not afraid.

Suddenly the day's aggression transforms into a different tension. His pulse quickens and his desire to have her, to ravage her, to be consumed by her, rages. A sensation fuels Beth as she feeds off the fire in his eyes, and she draws him in, meeting his tongue with hers, reaching for him to keep him close. Her arms, those thin sunburned things that had so recently been fiercely fighting off walkers, enwrap him with unguarded enthusiasm. Daryl grunts slightly as he lifts her, backing her against the broad weathered trunk of the oak. Their kiss deepens and intensifies as she pulls open his shirt and vest and he fumbles with belt buckles and zippers and holsters, looking for a release, looking for  _her._ Her jeans undone Daryl tugs them down her creamy thighs, leaving them in a bunch about her knees, and holding her at the waist he kneels down and kisses her navel, biting at the fraying elastic in the waist of her underwear. With only his teeth he tugs them low enough so that he might kiss her there, which he could do all day, one hand gripping round her, holding her in place by her bare pert ass, the other reaching up to her small breasts beneath layers of worn and tattered garments. Beth's fingers grasp the gnarled tree bark for support and find balance in gripping his sweaty hair at the roots. She breathes in, cutting off a moan of unexpected pleasure. The delicious sensation is entirely new to her but only wets her appetite; her desire for her archer builds and her hands tug at his hair to call him back to her. Daryl Dixon rises, kissing her torso and then her soft freckled chest where she's pulled away her top. Caressing her face and jawline, taking her girlish breast in his mouth, playing secretly with her in her aroused inner folds, Daryl pauses his campaign to look her in the eye.

Beth smiles at him and blinks, then pulls him to her in a kiss he answers with matched intensity. He would lift her again, continuing his assault, dropping his loosened pants and drive himself into her, but as he tries he's hindered by the obstacles of her jeans and her boots and when her sweet slight hands travel past his flexing shoulders, beneath the collar of his sweat soaked shirt and down his back— he flinches, starts, pulls back from her and quick as anything turns her round. In one fluid movement Daryl runs his hands down the length of Beth's arms, lifting them above her and leans her against the tree. Strategically out of her reach but keeping her very much in his, both Daryl's lips and hands travel the terrain of her nearly naked body, pausing to further push down her jeans, nudge her footing a little farther apart, and reach around to find her pleasure, supporting his weight against her by wrapping his left hand in hers where above their heads it presses against the tree trunk. Still unaccustomed, Beth gasps as he enters her but she gives way to his passion and melds into him at his touch, wherever and however it reaches her. Daryl presses on, making love to her as his crossbow at his back keeps rhythm with his thrusts, and when there is nothing left but to capitulate to his desire and exhaustion he holds her fast, gripping her young body to him, burying his face in the soft bend of her neck where her golden hair falls lightly on him, and lets go everything — surrendering himself to the mighty, exquisite thundering of it all. " _Be-eth,_ " he hotly breathes into her ear as the lithe and gritty beauty shudders limply in his arms.


	3. Chapter 3

"Tell me your most embarrassing story," she says as she trudges behind him through the shrubby tangle underfoot.

Daryl shoots an incredulous look back over his shoulder at her. "Why?"

"Because," she smiles. "It'll pass the time."

"So you  _are_  bored."

Though he can't see, Beth rolls her eyes at him. " _So_?" she prompts.

"Ain't got none."

"Bull," she answers back, prompting a wry grin from Daryl. "How 'bout from when you were a kid?" She lengthens her step and catches up with him, smiling, a bit breathless as she walks beside him, overstepping foliage and rocks and burrow holes.

"Never was one."

" _O_ h," she chuckles. " _Right_. I'h forgot. Of course not."

He looks at her with a wary look then cracks just a little, a mischievous little, and shoves lightly at her shoulder. He's doing more of that now, just reaching out and touching her. Looking back, Daryl had never withheld physical contact from the group, or emotion (in his own way), her included — nudging her or tapping her, or guiding her or helping her, but there is a difference now in his touch: Beth has long been his, as has all the group — his to love (in his fashion), his to look out for and make a stand for, his to belong to; but now, here in these woods and on these country roads, on the run from death and danger, refugees from their fallen home and dispersed extended family, she really is his, more than anything else ever has been, and the simple touch of camaraderie and fellowship — and  _love_  — comes much easier.

"Well," Beth tries again, "what would you be doing now, if you were home, if the turn had never happened?"

Daryl pauses this time when he looks at her, he likes this question even less than the last. "M,mm." And he keeps walking, hitching the bow in his arms a little higher. Beth follows after, mindful of the land mines she unwittingly uncovers from time to time from his past. On they walk, left, right, left, right, stumble, balance, left, right, onward, ever onward. "How about you?" his deep voice breaking the settled silence.

Beth looks up, "Huh?"

" _You_ ," Daryl's eyes roll at the explanation he's needing to give to his effort to go along. "What would you be doing?"

Beth smiles at the gesture, but as she considers her answer she stops short, as though the reality of it is only just dawning on her. She looks at him, detached bemusement on her face, like it hardly seems real. "I'd be starting college." Her brow furrows in reflection, "I'd have graduated already... I'd be getting a roommate. And taking classes." She nearly half laughs, "I never even took my SATs. All that studying; all that work; what was it for?" Daryl swallows, his thin eyes steady on her.  _What is there to say?_  Beth shakes her head, then carries on, brushing her fingers against his as she moves past him before he too resumes their endless walk.

"... Whudd'ya miss most?"

Beth's head shakes again. "Too many things." Beth doesn't linger long on those kinds of thoughts anymore. Fresh sheets, iced coffee, phone calls, homemade strawberry ice cream, friends, music, full gas tanks, dresses, peace of mind — they're gone. Better to think about what they can still have. Beth pauses, waiting as he slaps and crushes the mosquito on his neck, then keeps on. "I'll bet I'm the only one still left from my class."

Daryl looks back at her, it's not like Beth to detach to such a degree. "Why do'ya say that?"

"D _a_ ryl. You saw the other farms. You saw the refugee centers. My high school's overrun. The town's deserted."

"Some could'a made it out." Beth only shrugs and walks on. She's keeping her faith for Maggie, and for Glenn. And Judith and Carl and Rick and Michonne and the kids and the rest of the prison group. He understands that; some things you gotta just let go.

They stop for a spell, to drink some water, and to take a piss. Beth's sitting, her legs stretched out, looking up into the tree branches, and at the leaves lightly dancing in the breeze, feeling the warm sunlight beaming down on her, when Daryl returns and scratches her shoulder as signal to head out. Beth's rise is obligatory, wishing she had a reason just to stay and not to endlessly ceaselessly walk. Only there is none; this spot in the woods is just like every other, which is as much a reason to move on as it is to stay, and so they move on, looking for something they each privately fear will never be found, or may no longer even exist.

Beth walks beside him, listening to the sounds of crunching leaves and brush under their feet. They haven't seen many walkers today. The three they killed tangled up in a thicket, and the one she'd killed in the morning when Daryl'd been beyond camp in the trees. They'd past a pack of four or five of them several miles back, but they were far off, and upwind, and hadn't caught their scent. Quiet. Except for the chirping of birds, and the constant humming of insects.

Beth breaks the silence, "We should do something."

Daryl glances back at her. "This again?"

"N _o_ ," she says. "But we should  _do_  something."

Darlyl's lip curls up, " _Hmph—_  You  _are_  bored." He waves her on and on they trudge. Daryl uses his crossbow to break open a path through the brush. Holding back some branches, waiting for her to pass through, Daryl nods stoically at his girl, "Whut'chya got in mind?"

Beth looks at him, pleased and mildly surprised, then swallows her smile and continues ahead of him, satisfied he'd indulge her this much. "Something nice," she smiles. "Something different." She looks back at Daryl," Aren't you tired of walking?"

"Tired of a lotta things. Don't think it'll change nothin' anytime soon."

"All right," she concedes, "maybe not. But even so.  _One_  day," she says. "We can have one good day."

Daryl's brow arches at her, "L _i_ ke?"

Beth Greene shrugs. She'd spoken as the thought struck her — she didn't have a plan. Now as she walks alongside Daryl she rummages in her thoughts for something 'good'. "We could climb a tree?" she offers after a bit, remembering the thrill of watching the world shrink and fade beneath while climbing ever higher into a universe of leaves, and sky, and breeze. It's simple, sure, but it isn't as though there's a cinema, or a featherbed they can make their way to. The backwoods of Georgia don't offer much in the way of diversion.

Not expecting that one Daryl guffaws. "A  _tree_?" It is at once improbable and implausible. He points around them, "See any around big enough?"

"Okay," she admits. "We could… Go sw _i_ mm _i_ n'."

"River's runnin' low; no swimming holes."

"We could at least take a bath," she posits. "Get clean. Wash our hair," she's getting wistful just at the thought of it. "Or just sit d _ow_ n, even; stop walking, find somewhere pretty to sit in the sun. Find some flowers, look up to the sky and find the shapes in the clouds." She looks at him, "You ever do that?"

Daryl shakes his head. He's never done that. He reaches out and tugs her closer by her hip belt loop, "Nuthin's gonna change," his low voice rumbles. "— Out here I mean."

Beth's large blue eyes blink up at him and then she lays a small kiss on his lips. "I'h know."

Looking fondly at her Daryl struggles to reclaim his point, "— Just 'cuz  _we_  wanna have a nice day."

"' _We_ '," she teases, beaming at his succumbing. "Anyway, I'h kn _o_ w that, but  _we_  c'n be different. Com'on," her smile widens and entices. "Let's have a good day. We can eat the last of the canned peaches and salt crackers."

"'d be smarter to save 'em," he grunts.

"' _It'd be smarter to save 'em_ ,'" she mocks winningly with her best Daryl Dixon face.

Daryl looks at her soberly, but her desire to do this is so charming he has to give in; his stern incredulity and pragmatism give way and yield to her perennial optimism. He smiles, then grants her enterprise with an understated nod, and ushers her on with the end of his crossbow. "Al'right," he allows with leeway of patience, "find you some flowers an' a climbin' tree n' river." He pushes lightly on her back, "And some pretty clouds." Beth laughs as she walks on through the woods, keeping her eyes out for a clearing, or a meadow. Anything distinctive and different from the endless woods will do. "Got any more stupid games tuh play?" he asks dryly, shouldering his bow and following behind her.

Ahead of him by several paces Beth smiles guilefully, "What do I git if I win?"

"Ya already won."

"If  _you_  win…" she deliberates, "you get the wool socks, the next ten pieces of chewing gum we find, and… I'll carry the tent in my pack for the next three days."

Daryl's jaw juts out and his brows raise dubiously. "Those 're high stakes."

"Hell yeah." Behind her, Daryl smiles. "So what do  _I_  get?" she asks, without ever turning round to see him.

Daryl considers. "Next two nights in a bed. Three indoors if we can't find a bed."

Beth spins round in a whirl of smiles. " _Really?_ " Daryl squints his affirmation. "Wull," she hesitates before getting too invested in the prospects of sleeping with a mattress, and a pillow, again, "what about others? What about the risk?"

Daryl shrugs. "M'ybe two nights won't do no harm. We'll be al'right." Beth beams and turns forward, and continues to cut their path to their self-declared 'nice day', and hopefully two well-earned nights' sleep in an actual bed.


	4. Chapter 4

Some hours later Daryl and Beth break through the foliage into the outskirts of a small cross-strip town. Beth, looking forward to her two night stint in a real bed, is as cautious and alert as her companion on point as they leave the shelter of the woods and enter again the crossroads of men and the remnant structures of what had been civilization. Truth is, like the dead, the living are everywhere — in towns, on the roads, as well as in the wilderness. They were never exclusively safer in the woods; bandits and marauders roam the countryside now, and there's no knowing where they might be, but towns are the points where all survivors eventually converge. The draw of the comforts and necessities of the old life become too strong, or too dire, and regardless of how thoroughly picked over these empty towns and residences become, the living still come to eek out what they can from a life and a world that's in decay.

His eyes askance Daryl signals for Beth to take the right, and they move forward, advancing with weapons raised and loaded. Within minutes Daryl's arrow shoots, hitting a roaming walker direct in the back of its head, sending it falling straight forward into the pavement. Both Beth and he look, but there are no immediate signs of others, then Beth, gun still raised, knife at the ready, hurries forward to retrieve the arrow, stepping her boot on its skull to do so. Daryl reloads, and they move on. They have learned to be cautious. They touch their palms to the hood of each vehicle they pass; they keep their voices low, or do not speak at all; they tread lightly, and look for any sign the town might be claimed, by the living or the dead. They round the corner, passing the water tower, and head east, up toward the center of town, passing by repair shops and auto garages as they do.

"Should we go in?" Beth asks in a hushed tone. Who knows what little's left to salvage in any of these places, and without a vehicle, or a home base, there's only so much they can carry, but they're in town so rarely, it'd be wrong not to get what they can. Daryl shrugs his vote and Beth's eyes scan the vacant street to vote for the best target. Pointing to auto garage Beth looks at Daryl, he nods, and they move towards it. At the wooden door, compromised with dry rot, Beth takes point, raising her weapon, as Daryl prepares to kick in the door. When it's down she's in first, then steps aside as Daryl follows in, scanning with his crossbow, resuming the lead. There are no signs of walkers. Beth lowers her gun, then Daryl his bow, and they proceed to scavenge. There isn't a lot. They pocket some screw drivers, Beth takes a crowbar, then makes for the bookkeeping desk to see what's there while Daryl looks for fuel.

"You enjoyin' your 'nice day'?" he grunts as he comes up empty, container after container. She'd asked for something simple, for something pleasant from her old way of life, not to go on a less than fruitful run.

Beth turns round, popping half a stick of stale spearmint gum in her mouth, and smiles. "Mm,hm." She offers the other half to him then sticks the rest of the pack she'd found in one of the desk drawers into her bag.

"You find a gun or anythin' up there?"

"Uh, uh." She scours on, pocketing a carton of something as she does. "Who'd rob an auto shop anyway?"

Daryl looks at her, once more (as so often he is) surprised by something she's said. Shifting past her in the cramped walkway through lifts and machinery, Daryl plants a light kiss on her brow as he talks into her forehead in the passing: "Dumbasses lookin' for a fix'll do any variety of stupid shit; an' folks never just had guns for protection."

She looks at him, with the knowledge he'll probably never stop speaking to her like she knows nothing about anything. Her eyes glance about the garage, knowing also Daryl's tendency to talk to her this way, is, in his way, Daryl saying something very nice about the way he sees her. "Not much else here," she observes. "Unless you see some Daryl-Dixon thing I'm missin'."

Daryl shoots her a look — this girl loves to give him a hard time.  _Is it h_ e _r? Is it her age? Or is it something he brings out in her?_  "Like wh _u_ t?"

"I dunn _o_ ," she smiles. "C'n you build a motorcycle out of scraps? Make a second crossbow outta spare auto parts?"

She  _is_ teasing him; Daryl pops the other half stick of gum in his mouth and grimaces wryly, "Shut up."

" _Wait—_ " He'd been heading to the door when the thought of something struck her. Daryl turns around. "Think what we'd need to make another silencer would be here?"

He looks at her; it'd been Rick who'd figured how to do it, and it'd been some time since he had, but Daryl swings his bow back round his shoulder and steps back towards the nuts and bolts and washers. "Ain't got the right kind of flashlight. No aluminum bat neither. An' even if we did, might not have the right kind of firearms that'll fit it."

"Still though," she makes her case, "it's easier to find a flashlight or even a gun out there than a washer or a clamp; right? Shouldn't we take what we'd need while we c'n get it?"

Shrugging, Daryl pieces through the parts, "You're the boss." Now beside him at the workbenches Beth shifts her hip to bump his. "H _ere_ ," he says, ignoring her playfulness, "look for more o' these." He hands her a washer and a hose clamp. "Still need a hand saw... An' a drill..."

Beth browses in the shelves and drawers behind them while he pockets some odds and ends, and— " _Daryl_ ," he can hear the broad smile she must wearing just by her voice; he turns round. " _Look,"_  she holds up her find; in her hands is an almost full roll of duck tape, the uses of which are so varied even this windfall seems not nearly enough. Daryl nods, and watches as Beth slips the roll onto her wrist like some crazy industrial bangle bracelet.  _Beth never does what he would think to do..._

Loaded with all they can use they head — once again on high alert — back onto the street, making several more stops as they make their way further into town. There isn't much left anywhere, but Beth thinks to stop into an untouched craft store and there they score from half mannequins and display hangers knit sweaters, scarves, hats, and mittens, all meant as models for future projects never to be undertaken. Daryl has to give her credit for that one — he, and evidently no on else, would have ever thought of that. In a dish by the register is a bowl full of Tootsie Rolls, Daryl tugs Beth around, opens the flap in her pack and dumps them in.

At a general store Beth picks up some much needed bug spray, one more tiny bottle of hand sanitizer, and a pocket packet of facial tissues — destined  _not_  to be used on their faces. Beth looks, the personal hygiene and feminine care aisles are barren. Ironic, as she  _isn't,_ and there are things she — and now  _he_  — need. Behind her Daryl uses his knife to crush in the skull of a slow-moving walker that had emerged from the storeroom. Grabbing, as he steps over it, the single jar of artisanal mustard that had somehow been overlooked by previous scavengers.

There isn't much else to get. No sign of food. All the storefront cafes have long since been ransacked. They move on. When their path takes them past a boutique baby and toddler store, with headless mannequins of children and toddlers macabrely posed in faded once-cheerful clothes and happy tableaus, both Daryl and Beth look away. It's too much, the loss of all those children, of all those young lives. _Judith…_  For some time it had been hard for Daryl to break the habit of keeping his eyes open for baby things — formula (even though she'd already mostly outgrown it), diapers, toys. They didn't need them now, since after the fall, but it was hard to retrain his eye not to look. He found he missed a lot of the prisoners in this way, thinking as he scours shelves and drawers and closets: this for Tyresse, this for Carl, this for the couple in G block, this for dental hygentist in A, this for Carol—

... Now he just looks with Beth in mind, hoping he'll never have to force himself to forget what she would like, or need; hoping he'll never have to look away when he sees a piano, or a blank journal, or some silly figurine. Even a cloud, or a yellow flower…

"Le's git goin'," he grunts. "Don't have to do the whole town in one sweep."

Beth nods her second, "Al'right." She looks about the quiet streets then at him, "Where to?"

Out on the street Daryl surveys the lay of the town. The sun is low in the sky. Somehow Beth's day off from walking had turned into one more long day of walking. They have yet to take anything that would pass as a rest. And it'd been long hours since they'd last eaten. They should take a quick run through a couple of houses, look for some food, then settle in. Daryl leads the way, across the street from the shops and up the corner block to the first row of houses — still in sight of the main street thoroughfare but somewhat off the beaten path. Daryl shoots a walker in the street, and bashes in two more before they make it to the first house. On the stoop, Daryl squares himself for preparation to knock the door in with his shoulder, but Beth tries the knob and the door opens easily — it's been forced open already. Daryl shoots Beth a look.

They step in, waiting for the sounds of the dead, waiting for the sounds of the living. Nothing. Daryl moves further in, his crossbow reloaded and ready, slowly, alertly scanning the place. Meanwhile Beth shuts the door behind them and drags over a credenza to block and secure the entrance, staying there at the ready should she have to undo that maneuver in a hurry. Pulling her knife Beth's eyes follow after Daryl, but aside from what looks like had been the remains of a person, maybe a child, and three dead walkers in the living room, and some other smears of blood, both human and walker, the house is clear.

They move straight for the kitchen. After raiding the house's whole lower level, the kitchen in particular, and coming up with nothing in the means of food, or weapons beyond a small hammer and very dull kitchen knives, Beth says over her shoulder, "I'm gonna look upstairs." She mounts the stairs, one at at time, her knife poised and ready, and Daryl follows after. At the landing he nudges her back and takes the lead — one, two, three bedrooms are clear. No sign of walkers, lots of evidence the place has been run through by groups several times over. Beth ducks her head in each of the rooms — a little girl's, a boy, only slightly older … master. Beth steps in, crossing straight to the bed.

It is unmade and rumpled, no doubt any number of people have spent a night in the bed since the owners disappeared, but Beth, who at one point in her life was repelled by the blankets and coverlets in hotel rooms, now happily and gleefully drops herself face down on the bed. She sighs deeply.

"Hmph." He watches her. "Happy?"

Her answer is muffled by the pillows she threw herself onto but he can just make out something that sounds like "'s  _heaven_." Daryl snorts in appreciation, and looking at her, clearly having no intention of stirring, he lays down his crossbow and moves to tug off her boots.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Standing behind her where she lays Daryl lifts one foot then the other, tugging off her mud and blood encrusted boots, letting them drop, one by one, heavy onto the pine board floor. Next he pulls off her socks, worn, and sweaty and stained with her own blood from blisters. He lets these drop too. Daryl takes her feet in his hands, long and narrow and thin, thrashed with blisters and swollen from the chronic abuses of the road. He rubs, with the ends of his thumbs and the balls of his hands, hard, and steady, and slow. He runs his knuckles down the undersides of her arches in repetition, and rubs each aching toe individually. Beth exhales in great pleasure and sinks deeper into the bed. Daryl grabs a bottle of water from his nearby pack, and with a corner of the bed sheet he dabs at and washes the open sores in her raw skin. The recently acquired wool socks she'd bartered with him really were high stakes — thick, absorbent, air wicking; they could make a big difference in a life lived as they now live.

Daryl's calloused hands move up her legs, reaching up through the ends of her jeans, massaging her calves, though he can hardly get at them the fabric of her pants is so tight. Resting one knee in the space between her semi-parted legs, Daryl leans over her weary body and reaches in beneath her, undoing her jeans without hardly disturbing her. Wordlessly he takes hold of her waistband at either hip and tugs the jeans and her underpants down her hips and travel-tried limbs, shimmying them off and dropping them on the floor beside her boots and her socks. Beth's bare skin tingles now exposed to the air, becoming alive with anticipation and keenly aware of every touch, every new sensation.

Her muscles, which have been building and strengthening these months on the road, throb from overuse now that they're finally permitted to stretch out and relax. Daryl takes them in his hands, letting her toes rest and press against his chest as he rubs first one calf and then the other, massaging until the knots break down and her limbs go limp in his grasp. She would say something, roll over, return the favor —  _something_ , but it feels too good to even stir to make a sound. And so Beth lies there, not caring that her backside is entirely exposed to him, not caring that this by far is the longest extended length of time he's seen her in such a state of undress. She's so worn out, and so pleasurably indisposed, she can't be bothered to care. And more than that, he is the person she trusts implicitly with her body, with her heart, with her _life_ ; by this point she has little use for modesty and no reason to demure. It's  _Daryl_.  _Her_  Daryl.

He might have at one time seen her as just another dead girl who just had yet to die, but if he ever had, it's not so now. Beth is what he's got. Beth is  _all_  that he's got. And to him she is very much alive, and resilient, and brave. There is nothing in him for her to shy away from. What's more, any shame they might have individually felt about their bodies — the proportions of hers, or the scars etched so deeply in his — are irrelevant; this world, and much more the love they feel for one another, has made them moot. Their bodies keep them alive, and in them, breathing and  _being_ , they are beautiful. There is no reason at all to wish them any other way. That huge bruise on the back of her upper thigh — where his hands are working up to, moving slowly and with stealth, over the sensitive spot at the back of her knees, running up her inner legs, kneading and massaging with his palms and his thumbs — is evidence that when knocked down she stood up again. The thin ropey scars on her wrist signify the same. The marks on his back shaped him as he is. Daryl Dixon: Bluntly honest, fiercely loyal, guarded as hell, deeply empathetic, fearless, and good. There's nothing else to see in them. If she had the time and mind frame to think of these things anymore, she might have wished herself fuller curves, or smoother skin, but this is the body she's surviving in, what other body could he possibly want?

Daryl moves from her thighs, trailing round the sides of her hips, up the small of her back where his fingers entangle in the fabric of her garments as he lays his lips softly in the dip just above her tailbone. Efficiently he pulls up on her shirts, tugging them up off her, under her chest, over her shoulders and her head, pulling her arms through each in turn, helping her to remain as motionless as she chooses. Her shirts too fall to the ground. Daryl's other leg, that had been straddling the bed to the floor, now lifts to the mattress, landing his knee beside her, just below her right breast. He starts in on her neck. Rubbing, pressing, pinching, rolling. Unexpectedly Beth lets out a muffled groan, " _Uuuuuhhhh_." His hands are hurting her, pinching her muscles till they burn, but through the pain the release feels  _so_  good. He carries on, incorporating her shoulders and her sides, down the length of her back where she is also bruised and scratched and lightly scarred. But untouched in comparison. With a pop of his thumb he undoes the hooks in her bra, and lets the straps fall limply to either side of her. Lightly he touches his weathered hand to her soft skin, feeling on her the place where if her hand lay on his she would not kn _o_ w but f _ee_ l the life from which he still sometimes feels he is fleeing.

Daryl pushes back the hair muffling her lovely face from his. With her wisps of curls displaced he can see one bright eye and the corner of a smile; Daryl kisses her shoulder-blade, and rubs down the muscles in the length of each arm from shoulder to fingertip, taking extra care with her hands, rubbing each front ways and back, from base to finger end. Then again his hands find their way to her back. Rubbing out the kinks and the stress. Pushing out from her spine on the balls of his hands, pressing down and up on her ribcage, cracking her back in two places. And when his hands move once more they run down the length of her sides, running beneath her, and cupping her breasts where they rest pillowed in the bedding. The stirring Beth's been feeling builds, and the dull sense of wanting, intensified by the sense of his thick knee so very close between her open thighs.

Beth edges towards him by a fraction. She has not learned this sort of patience yet, there is no place for it in the woods. To be embraced so openly by him — every bit of her from toes to ears — is exquisite, and though this was not what she'd meant at all when she'd asked him for a good day, certainly he's delivered. Then his touch vanishes, and just when she starts to think that he has finished, and she releases a deep sigh, sinking yet even deeper into the longed for and hoped for and dreamt of bed, her ears catch the unmistakable sound of a belt coming unbuckled and a zipper coming unzipped. Next to follow are the sounds of clothing falling to the floor with a dull thud — that would be the leather vest and his layers of shirts.

Though she cannot see him from where she lies, she can see the picture he must make — strong and lean and scarred, filthy, focussed and beautiful. Motionless excepting her limbs, Beth flutters her legs, running her toes up and down until she can feel him behind her. Although undone, and fallen below his hips, he is still in his torn and ragged pants. His hands find her again, inching up the inner path of her claves and gamine thighs. His lips and tongue kiss her, moving without pattern across her soft skin that tastes of sweat and distinctly of Beth. Beth wonders if Daryl's capacity to be gentle, and attentive, ever surprises him (it is not what one would expect from him). She guess it might, though it hasn't her since she first saw him take Judith in his arms. There are other sides to Daryl of course. The side that at times made her fear him, and at others nearly hate him, but she'd long known this is part of him too. The part that can  _feel,_ and love, and take on another person completely. Even before Judith was born, back to the group's early loss of that little girl. Carol's daughter. Sophia. A part of him that might have been all of him had his early life gone differently.

And even if a person hadn't been there in those moments as she had been, to see the devastation of loss, of utter helplessness masked behind strength, to see the deep wealth of empathy and love allowed out only when holding a newborn motherless infant, it is there in his eyes when he isn't filled with rage or retaliatory malice. She is not the only one to see it, they all did, even the newcomers. That is how Daryl Dixon came from being the outsider camped out on his own on the hill by the site of the farm's original homestead, to the point man of the prison group and member of the council, universally respected and widely loved. She had seen then how he'd carried the position awkwardly, and knows more now how ambivalent about it he must have been. And she just loves him. She does. Utterly. Fearlessly.

Wanting to be closer, wanting him still nearer, Beth lifts her head and starts to turn herself over on her elbows to face him, but Daryl leans in over her, and his hands slip into hers and he stretches them out before her and presses wet kisses on her ear and neck. " _Shhhh_." Daryl's long firm fingers of his right hand entwine with all ten of hers, freeing his left to slide down beneath her, and lift her slightly by her narrow waist. She feels him now so close to her, the heat from his body radiating through hers, and she breathes, and she waits, helplessly anticipating  _When? When? When?_

And  _then_ —

Together both he and she breathe in their delayed pleasure " _Vhhhhhhh—!"_  then release in unison " _Uuuuhhhhh..._ " as their bodies adjust. Daryl lies himself completely atop her, covering her from the world, holding her so intimately close, loving her entirely. The sensation of his body working in and against hers leaves Beth lost and she does, in these fervent overpowering minutes with him, detach from everything — the loss, the fear, the hunger, the exhaustion, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the dreary monotony, the isolation, the devastation — it all temporarily dissipates until there is euphorically nothing but him and her in the world of this bed. Nothing is missing, nothing is lost of forsaken, no one is broken or weak, and together they—

Beth shudders and her breath stops short as her body intensely constricts and contracts, but at the height of his own passion Daryl pulls himself away from her and product of their activities ends up cupped in his calloused hand.

When she can catch her breath and focus Beth twists herself round and props herself up to look at him, "What was that?"

"Th _a_ t," he says, kissing the soft inside of her raised thigh, "was restraint. Also goes by," he kisses her breast, "caution."

She understands. "Oh." She was more than aware they hadn't exactly practiced 'caution' up to this point. Not in that regard.


	6. Chapter 6

Daryl rises from her and from the bed, his hand still messily cupped, and wipes it on the drapes, leaving behind a wet sticky stain. " _Daryl; gross._ "

He turns back to her, amused she's still so prim after all they've been through. "Girl, you spend your days caked in walker guts an' all kinds of gore, and  _that's_  gross?" He grabs her bare toes as he passes by, giving them a little tug as he does, "Com'on; get'up."

Beth looks at him blankly, " _Why?_ " She's quite content where she is.

"'C _u_ z," he grunts. Beth watches his body move, every shift and shadow of his muscles, as he draws up his drawers and pants — he's extraordinary and she thinks he is beautiful. "We're not staying here."

"Daryl. You promised me a bed. Two nights in a bed. That was the deal."

Daryl tosses her jeans at her, "Little girl, you'll get your bed. But we c'n find a safer one." He rebuckles his belt, admiring the sight of her laid out and spent, flushed and beautiful there among the mussed white sheets. He savors the image of it, then turns away, locating his clothes and hers then grabbing her well-shaped calf for a little shake. "Hey; Lazy, git up." And Daryl's back to business, loading gear, on the move, mission in mind.

Reluctantly Beth rises and dresses, tugging back on her filthy jeans, but not before rifling through the dresser drawers and locating several pairs of women's underwear. Though several sizes too large, more importantly they're clean, and not paper thin from wear and over-washing. She's sold. Beth pulls one pair on and stuffs the couple of others in her bag. She finds them both new pairs of socks, with several spares to add to their stash, and abandons her tattered sweat-stained tops in favor of whatever she can find. The ones she finds are much too large, and hers is such a pathetic rag, Beth opts to forego a bra entirely, leaving hers crumpled on the carpet floor. She isn't bathed, and if anything she's sweatier and stickier than when they'd entered the room, and her jeans are still unrepentantly filthy, but with new tops and fresh underwear and socks, she does feel revived. Beth saves the precious wool socks for when they get back on the road in two days, and tugs on the cotton-poly ones followed by her boots.

Daryl's been dressed and waiting a while, but first Beth checks both the bedside table drawers, the medicine cabinet and under the bathroom sinks. No condoms. She does discretely grab the quarter-full box of tampons, as well as a half-used bar of soap, some men's sport deodorant, a toothbrush, and a mostly-squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. No medicine. Not even a Band-Aid or gauze. She looks for hair ties, but can't find any, and out in the bedroom she can hear Daryl getting restless. "B _eth_? Ya done with yer sh _o_ ppin' spree, or whut?"

"I'm comin'," she says, and shoulders her pack and follows him into the hall — refraining from mentioning that as long as they're there they may as well check the other rooms — and follows him downstairs. "You're such a cr _a_ nk," she tells him, pushing at the back of his head with her fingertips.

"Uh,huh," he nods lightly, opening the front door and looking around before stepping out and signaling for her to follow, "that's me, 'Daryl the Crank.'" He throws her a quick smile and she returns it with one of her own. It  _did_ turn out to be a nice day.

Walking into the road in the glow of dusk, her loaded gun in hand by her hip, his armed bow aimed low toward the ground and at the ready, she reflects, still smiling, "I still don't get why we couldn't stay here."

"The curtains were dirty," he answers in dry succinctness.

Beth laughs, "An' whose fault is th _a_ t?"

Daryl shakes his head, "Ain't my fault you're damned irresistible." Beth looks at him and smiles. "'Sides," he adds, giving her another off-point excuse as to why a house off the beaten trail away from the main intersection of town would be a better site for them to set up their temporary stake, "you said you wanted flowers; we c'n find a place with flow—"

Beth smiles, cutting him off, "That's not the real reason—"

 _Kwawwwhhrhh!_  A bullet hits right where Beth was about to step. Beth freezes and looks up, Daryl throws out his arm in front of her to push her back, raising his bow with his other.

" _Hey_! Sam n' Diane!" a sardonic male voice catches them. "You're gonna want to throw down those weapons." Beth and Daryl spot their aggressors. "Trust me."

 


	7. Chapter 7

Instantly Daryl's right arm moves from Beth to the trigger of his Stryker; neither Daryl nor Beth let go their weapons, rather Beth raises hers, toward the eight figures now before them, coming out from behind a rusted vehicle long ago abandoned in the road and from the stoops of other nearby houses, converging now upon them. The man addressing them, like all his companions is ragged and rugged; by the looks of them they too are passing through, living on the road, this town is not theirs. The point man and his beady dark eyes register zero alarm at the raising of Daryl's and Beth's weapons. Secure in his confidence they'll be surrendered in the end, he only eyes the two of them dispassionately. "Course," he says with a dip of his head toward Beth, his eyes fixed on Daryl, seemingly benignly, "we could just take her. How does that sound to you?"

Daryl's index finger itches at his trigger. "Ain't going to happen," he declares gravely.

"Well," the point man snorts, "I tell you what: anything we s _ay_ is going to happen _'s_ going to happen. Seein' as we outnumber the two of you four to one." Quickly Beth scans the figures, in the back she thinks she spies a woman— "That sounds about right, don't it?" The speaker's impassivity eerily recalls the exterior composure of the Governor, except there is an element of transparency about him. " _Now,_ you got your listenin' ears on? 'Cuz here's what's going to happen: You all are going to hand over your guns, your food, your gear, the crossbow. Ever'thing."

Their hearts freeze and their guts stop. Handing over Daryl's crossbow leaves them as good as dead. "Uh,uh," Daryl says flatly. "Can't do it. We're not doing that."

Beth's eyes glance at Daryl just as seven semi and and fully automatic firearms focus in on them with deadly accuracy. They _can't_ do it it's true. Handing over every weapon they have might be a death sentence, but what is Daryl going to do to stop it? She trusts him implicitly, but isn't it better to walk away with nothing, than not to walk away at all? How many times now have they had to start over? They can do it again if they must.

"You _will_ do it," he corrects, with the cool assurance of someone with a stacked deck and history in his corner. "You're going to hand over everything you've got, and in return f'r playin', we're not going to kill your girl." Beth's face tightens and her deportment stiffens. Her stance spreads a little wider, she does not cower; she's _afraid_ , but she'll fight. Elizabeth Greene was there, witness to the day her much beloved father was butchered by a man not entirely different from this one; she can no longer shrink in the sight of her fear. Beside her Daryl's aggression and agitation are boiling, she can tell by the way he's bristling, and keeping his weight shifted forward like he's ready to charge, he's not accepting this. Daryl is looking for a way out. Daryl Dixon's ready to fight. "Listen; listen," the man presses Daryl to focus on him and not the others closing in on them. "Now, you're still alive, so that must mean you've got some damn good dumb luck, or you've got some fight in you. Pretty much c'n divide the world by that these days," he declaims. " _Course_ ," the man continues, "if it's dumb luck, that's bound to run out." He looks over Beth and Daryl, their skin crawling as they remain frozen under threat of fire. "Looks like that time could be right about n _o_ w..." he lets his words sink in. " _'N_ d, if you've got f _i_ ght, that tells me you've run into the world's share of raiders and rapists." His glance toward Beth sets Daryl fuming. "Now," he assures them, "as far as bad guys go, we're not that bad. We're not going to _eat_ you — for one. And if you haven't run into those types yet, consider yourselves lucky. And we ain't no rapists." This time he dips his head in a half-cocked obligatory gesture at Daryl, "In _principal_. What I'm getting at," he clarifies for both their edification, "we could be persuaded otherwise, if we felt that it would persuade _you_." He smiles now at Beth, "But I'm counting on not having to do any persuading."

Inwardly erupting with menace and violence Daryl keeps his head about him, biding his time and forcing back his reaction; he grimaces at the beady-eyed man and his crew, "You just threaten _h_ er?"

"Yeah," the point man affirms. "I did. See, what _she_ is—" and he stops and nods at Beth, as though she's just newly arrived on the scene, "' _Ma'am_ — is she's your Achilles tendon. Everybody's got one, and Doll-face here is yours. All we're doing is exploiting it to ensure we get what we're after. We're not 'bad'." His eyes follow unfazed as Daryl spits his rejection of this claim at his feet. "What you might call us is Darwinian. We're bandits; we're not psychopaths. Some people out there are reaching their true potential for some sick-shit evil now that the world's gone and society with it. The world's gone all _id_ for a lot of folks." He looks around at the faces of his tribesman, then back to their two captives. "That's not us. We're not s _a_ dists, we're survivalists. When it comes to it, and it _has_ come to it, it's _us_ , who'll survive. Not you." Daryl's arms are shaking, from holding the bow steady for so long, from wanting to act but not, from the helplessness crashing down on him. _He can't get them out..._ "We can kill you," the point man offers. "We can drop you easy. We got the man power and numbers and the firing power to do it; but we'll just as easily leave you right as rain, just, without your supplies. And weapons." He nods at Beth, "I'll let you keep that knife, girl, but we'll be taking your shoes."

Everything sinks. They're not going to get out of this. Two figures step out from the cluster of men and level their guns to first Daryl's and then Beth's heads. And they remain there, waiting for the order to fire. "Come on now," the dark eyes press, "tik tock. There maybe no such thing as time these days, but you should know, we ain't fond of waiting. And the longer we stay out here, the less chance you're gonna have to get away before the sun's disappeared completely." A Berreta at his temple, Daryl's eyes strain to catch a glimpse of Beth, but pushing her back like he had had shoved her out of his line of vision, and though he can sense her there, he can't get sight of her without turning his head toward her. "You keep checking on her," the point man says, "pretty soon she won't be all right. She is _now._ Quit while you're ahead. We'll give you a head start. Because, did I mention? This whole place 's gettin' set alight once we're finished."

...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah! Sorry for the extended cliffhanger! When I posted the last chapter I thought I was pretty close to having this next one done, but I have been cutting and pasting and reshuffling and deleting and adding forever. It isn't quite what I'd first had in mind in the details, and I don't know if it will live up to / disappoint expectations, but this is where the chapter landed — I hope it works (I can't look at it anymore).

The guns remain trained on Beth and Daryl, surrounding them on all sides; the men aiming them look on, waiting for the signal.

"You'd burn it all down?" Daryl grapples. "So seven people have better odds?"

"Not all of it," is the coolly delivered response. "We don't have that kind of starter fuel. But enough." The point man laughs, looking at the desperate expressions on his captives' faces. "Alarmed? I don't know where you an' the girl 've been, but the world's been on fire for goin' on three years. It's already gone up in flames; we're just raking the coals." He nods at Daryl, "There's a herd back on that road. We'll burn enough that the dead will be swarming. Some tall flames? They'll descend on this place, tear it down. Anything not lost to the flames'll be lost to the dead. The town'll be a wipe. You sure as hell won't be staying the night. Now let's get goin'n." The other seven watch, some stoic and dead eyed, others sniggering, getting off on the raid.

Daryl can't drop the bow. He can't. His eyes shift, sizing and resizing the stakes. If he bucks and can get the one at his head hostage, they'll have her straight away. Another standoff. If he—

"Brother, I can tell you're dying to pull that trigger, but I promise you you don't want to do that. You'll kill one of us, maybe — I'm betting you're still a good shot even considering how dead your arms must be getting holding postion like that—"

"—C'n do this all d _ay,_ " Daryl growls.

"Great. You kill one of us, there's seven left. You won't have time to reload. You'll be dead. Guaranteed. And then it'll be her." Again Daryl's eyes try to search for Beth. She's right there behind him but he can't see her. "I can see you running through your head all the other tight spots you got yourselves out of. You two out here on your own? Couldn't have been like that since the start. You've lost people; but you made it out. Don't let that inform this. Nothing worse than false confidence." He looks to his fellows, as if for confirmation, "Others thought they'd get out; they never have."

Daryl's stuck; adrenaline coursing through him, he twitches with the compulsion to act, but confounded by what will get them out. They can't give up their weapons. But he can't risk Beth. _Can he trust that if they surrender they'll be set free? Or is it just one more sinister ploy in this dark grim world? Better to take their chances and fight, or cut their losses and survive? What is Beth thinking?_ Daryl risks it and this time he does move far enough to see her. The gun against his head follows, closely, but it does not fire. There she is. Her feet spread, her arms steady, Beth looks ready to take a stand, but he knows she does that — she makes herself strong for his benefit so worrying about her isn't one more thing on his shoulders, but when she does that, it makes it harder for him to read her. His eyes move quickly, searching, searching for an out, a clue, something to be done, something that will let him get them out of this. He's thinking fast, but not fast enough. An out is eluding him and he needs to find one, fast, because they really are running out of time.

"Com'on now, Sam," the man orders Daryl. " _NOW. Drop the weapons._ "

"It doesn't have to go this way," Daryl tries. "Take the _a_ mmo. Take the r _ou_ nds and the _a_ rrows. Take the food. We keep the guns and the bow. Leave us the shoes. An empty water bottle. We'll call it even." His eyes are flashing in all directions, keeping track of all the faces behind the guns, watching Beth, watching the leader.

The guy cracks a smile, "Well aren't you the negotiator." His head shakes dispassionately, "Uh,uh. Think you're the first to try to talk your way out of this? Hasn't worked yet, and one rundown haggard lucky-ass redneck and waif sorority girl don't come close to what we've gone up against. Time to talk is over, get to surrendering— Or we w _i_ ll take her. We'll slit her throat, with her own little knife, and leave you here, alone, thinkin' on how it all could've gone down different. How _you_ could've been the difference in her living or dying." He shrugs, "It's up to you. You've got all the information. Is her life worth less than that banged-up old bow? Now make the call Sam. NOW!"

Daryl eyes Beth. He can't let this be another Governor. He can't let Hershel Greene's daughter die because he didn't act. He measures the odds one more time: If he takes a shot, kills one of em' they'll be on them before he can reach for his gun. Beth's a good enough shot, but she's not fast on the draw, not that fast. He can't risk a firing blitz, they wouldn't survive. His finger hovers heavy over the trigger—

"All right." Beth speaks up. "All right." Daryl freezes and Beth looks from the bandit to Daryl and then back. "But you have to leave quietly. You can't leave us here with nothin' and then do somethin' that'll make them come." All eyes are on her. "You said you weren't interested in killing us," she reasons, "don't make us targets. If you d _o_ , we're two more walkers coming after you in the end."

"Or we could shoot you both in the head right now and be done with it. You don't really have any ground to be making requests."

Beth doesn't back down, she's got that ardent precocious school girl thing going and she argues their case, "Don't kill us — or leave us for dead, we'll give you what you want." Her fingers flex as she regrips her firearm. "Otherwise, fire, but we'll take at least two of you out with us. We're excellent shots." Daryl doesn't know where she's getting the balls to say all this, or to make demands but his eyes narrow and focus through his scope, he takes aim—

" _Uuuurghhh-uhh!_ " Everything happens at once: Beth doubles over, reeling in pain from the unexpected blow to her lower back by the butt end of an automatic rifle; Daryl's bow is knocked out of range, the bolt fires dead into the asphalt, but he's quick to grab the handgun he's carrying in his back waistband and draws it, cocking it at the skull of the bandit closest him. There they are — Beth caught, held with arms locked behind her, a knife at her throat, Daryl with a gun at his head and his gun at another's. It took mere seconds for the upheaval to up the stakes and escalate the stalemate.

Daryl freezes watching Beth struggle as best she can to get loose with the blade to her neck. "Let 'er go," he growls.

"I don't think so."

"I'll kill him," Daryl says about the man he's holding hostage.

"You kill one of mine, we kill _all_ of yours. Now _end_ this, give up the gun! We've been more than fair, we could have eliminated you six different ways by now. We even let you bed her one last time." He looks at Beth, who's trying not to breathe too hard against the edge of the blade, "I apologize, if I'm presumptive. Maybe he's your dad," he drops with an offhand smirk. "See," he says, fingering a wisp of Beth's frazzled hair, "Blondie here," Beth cringes at his touch, "'s our golden ticket. She's going to do what we want, so we don't bash your skull in, and _you're_ going to do what we want so we don't—"

" _Fuck you_ ," Daryl spits.

" _No_ ," he advances on Daryl, "see, th _a_ t's what you're trying to avoid. Do what we say, it won't come anywhere near that."

"Man, look at us. We ain't got n _u_ th _i_ n'. We been on the road for m _o_ nths; we got sh _i_ t."

" _Un-_ true." His voice is growing more vehement, he's losing his patience. People plead and lie and bargain with him all the time. "Saying I believed you, that that pup tent you're carrying and that crowbar and that duck tape she was wearing earlier, and all whatever else is stuffed in those two packs of yours _are_ shit and worth nothing to us, you still got two things worth a lot. You got your weapons — that crossbow and that Smith  & Wesson she's packin' an' your piece, plus anything else you've got on you — ammo, and I'll bet you've got more on you; _and_ —" he looks at them with meaning, "you've got your will to live." Daryl nearly chokes on his own belligerence, though none but Beth, who keeps her eyes trained on their adversaries, detects it. "Don't get me wrong, we don't give a _shit_ if you live out there — frankly you're two more people out there killing off the freaks — what we _do_ care about is _us_. If you've got a weapon, that's one less weapon for us. If you've got food, that's one more meal we're losing out on. If you're out there moving quickly being a little efficient apocalyptic duo, you're taking resources we could be getting. Us first — that's how we're playing this game."

" _This ain't no game_." Daryl's near rearing.

"Isn't it? _We're_ wining. _You're_ losing." He approaches Beth again, who's still in pain from the blow to her kidney and who's struggling to keep a brave face and some level of defiance if for nothing else for Daryl's sake. As he nears her, Beth's eyes go to the woman standing at the back, her gun also raised. Beth's wide blue eyes look to her to plead with her for some pity, for a stay, for some shred of decency— "Don't look at her. She's not going to do anything for you. Now, listen," he edges in, "you're going to walk over there, and you're going to get that gun out of your boyfriend's hands, bring it and the bow to us, then all your gear. Go ahead now," and the knife is pulled away from her and she's shoved forward a little with two guns still trained at her head.

"Wait—" he stops her, and speaks to her as one might a startled deer, "I'm just going to—" and he reaches around her and pulls off the pack she's still carrying. "Thank you. Go on now."

Beth swallows and crosses to Daryl. She hates to do this. She looks at him, and he tries to look at her, but he can't get his eyes to stay on her. Gently, ever so gently her shaking hands land on his. Daryl grips onto the gun tighter, but as her hands stay on him, he allows her fingers to intertwine with his and eventually, conflicted, he does relinquish the weapon to her. Once it's out of his hands and into hers the gun at his head strikes him hard against the back of it sending him stumbling forward as the surrendered firearm is wrestled out of her hands. The guns stay on Daryl and Beth.

"The crossbow too."

Beth can't look at Daryl as she reaches for their symbol of salvation, lifting the heavy weaponry from in between his legs where he'd dropped it after firing. Slowly she lifts it, fighting back the desperation that's filling her with its surrender—

"—Just knock me out," Daryl blurts out quickly. "Leave her the bow. Knock me out, we won't follow you; take the arrows, leave the crossbow. Take the gun, take _ev'rything!_ " He shrugs off his pack and flings it at them. "Leave us with the bow."

"You're talking like you've got experience running the show; like you get what you're after, but you're not running this show. You don't have the firepower nor the numbers. You've already lost. I can see you don't do that so easy, but that's all the more reason we've got for doing it." He tugs Beth away from him as another pulls the knife from Daryl's belt.

Now the leader lowers onto one knee and moves to pull Beth's boots off. His one hand at the base of her right foot his other holding the back of her calf, he tugs, and Beth struggles to keep her balance without relying on him to steady her. "You're pretty; you know that?" His hand travels to her other leg, and lingers there a moment before taking hold of the left boot. "Dangerous thing to be nowadays." He's said it like he's a social anthropologist, not as a threat, not like he's a threat; he said it without any sense of irony, ignoring fully he himself is dangerous. He lets the remark come off like some kind of helpful tip, like maybe she could do something about it. When she's left in only her socks, the clean ones she'd just found for herself, he rises, and doing so, fingers the end of her ponytail. Watching on, Daryl seethes, though Beth herself registers no outwardly reaction of any kind. "May I?" he asks with out-of-place civility, and he removes her knife from her waistband, and before she has time to protest that she'd been promised she could keep at least it, his grip on her hair tightens and he's bending her head back towards him, and sawing her ponytail off with her own knife. Her mouth opens in pain as the knife and his grip yank her back further and her face winces and clenches, but she remains mute. Finished, the man looks at the hacked of locks he holds in his hand then spreads open his fingers and lets the hair fall lifeless to the ground. "Now you," the guy barks at her as if the last thing to pass between them was the removal of her shoes. "Unlace his boots." Shaken, obediently Beth kneels before Daryl, and takes hold of his laces. Daryl looks down at her while she does, powerless to stop her, powerless to protect her, powerless now to intervene on his own behalf or hers. As he looks down, watching her slowly undo the thick double knots of his boots, Daryl realizes he no longer even recognizes her by the top of her head. Beth's hair is a mess, short in some places, longer in the back; it falls sadly about her head creating the effect of a half plucked bird. At some point her eyes meet his, he looks sorrowful and rage-filled at being utterly useless, and his eyes are wet with emotion. Sorry to be doing it, Beth, a Glock 19 and an automatic rifle trained and following her every move, works at undoing his boots, fleetingly looking up at him with the best incantation of reassurance she can muster. Through the ordeal her face has been stolid, even when her hair was hacked off; aside from a grimace as her head was yanked back, she made no face. No detectable tears pooled in her eyes. But now Beth fights back the tears and swallows hard on the knot in her throat as she does. It isn't the capitulation or the loss of their gear or even their weapons, but to do it _to_ Daryl, to be the one at his feet, removing his boots, to have handed over the bow, it is a guilt and a sorrow too weighty for her; she knows how very much he still needs to be fighting this. But she concentrates, and fights this swelling back; she will not cry for them, not over boots, and she will not let Daryl see her cry, not now. Not until they're safe. And they _will_ be safe. His second boot is untied and loosened and the man with the beady eyes nods at Daryl as Beth is tugged to her feet by her armpit, "Take 'em off." Daryl glares at the man, then without looking away, lifts one foot at a time, pulls off his boots and drops them, heavy, to the ground.

Daryl's close to driven to distraction; anyone who knows him could recognize the panic in his face. "You've got what you wanted," he hurls at them. "Now move on." But the clan of so-called Darwinists aren't finished. Now they're patting them down, checking their pockets, looking for anything he or Beth might have stored away on their person. This added affront and degradation has got Daryl twitching with rage, but it doesn't stop them. From him they pull a flint, matches, some assorted pieces of hardware, a bandana, twine, a multi tool, and, oddly, a small ceramic figurine of a bird. He'd grabbed it from the bedroom before they'd left. Seeing it Beth knows it was meant for her, and her eyes dart to him before she watches it smash against the black street. From her pockets they pull the pack of gum, chapstick, bullets, a lighter and a crumpled pack of low-tar cigarettes, the carton she'd pocketed at the garage as a surprise for Daryl.

"We got a score h _ere_ ," the one searching her calls, waving the carton in the air. Daryl looks at Beth. If she wasn't so fond of surprises he might've smoked two or more of them before they were ambushed. "' _We ain't got nuthin_ ','" the man jeers at Daryl.

"Alrighty," the point man calls, "think we're about done." At his nod several of his companions pull out bottled makeshift incendiaries, and lighting them with Beth's lighter spread out and chuck them through the windows of homes and storefronts. There is the crashing of glass and the rippling roar of flames catching and fire building. The two with guns still at their heads force Beth and Daryl down on their knees, tie their wrists behind their backs and to each other, then back away, aligning with the others, keeping their guns focused on the girl and the archer. The man nods again and one of them fires off a few rounds into the air. "We see you again—" the point man says "—I'll be expecting a good story of how you got yourselves out of this." And his eyes move to the horizon, where already the dead are appearing. "Take care you two," he says sardonically, "don't let this world get you down." They turn and walk away firing a few more stray shots in the air for good measure. "Keep love alive." As they go he drops Beth's knife, and the sound of it in the echo of the fired-off rounds is hollow and lonely.

In the growing darkness, two broken figures kneel in the street, without shoes, without gear, without weapons, without so much as a match or small excuse for a meal, surrounded by growing flames, a smashed ceramic, and advancing walkers. The figures rise, without direction, without hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, would love to hear how it played out (I had so many little bits of it written, when I pieced it together it seemed too drawn out), I might take a second stab at it eventually.
> 
> [Update: After seeing the S5 trailer premiere this past weekend, I've kind of lost steam on this... :( How can anything come close? And what crazy hospital clinic is Beth in? #elevatorshaft October come soon!]


	9. Chapter 9

For a moment they remain immobile and defeated, but even that is a luxury they no longer can afford and Daryl's voice, heavy, gnarled, and prostrate, breaks their miserable torpor. "Get up. Beth, get up." Daryl rises to his feet pulling Beth with him. Wincing at the pain in her back she struggles a moment for balance then moves in the direction of her knife; when Daryl moves in another direction the line binding them together pulls and keeps them in place. "Whut're ya doin'?"

"Daryl, we gotta get the knife."

"Knife's not fast 'nough fer this, better to make for the car, use the fender as a saw."

"It's dark, if we don't get the knife now we won't be able to find it."

Daryl exhales;  _why is she the one thinking clearly?_ He jerks his head. They move to the knife, lower themselves, and Daryl grasps it. He tries to angle it in position to cut them loose but the hilt gets in the way and in the end they do use the fender. Once loose Daryl hands the knife over to Beth then tears off a huge strip from his shirt, wrapping it tightly around a large shard of glass he breaks free from one of the shattered windows. He looks around, ready to act but the night, and the flames, and the still far-off walkers are closing in on them and—

" _FUCK!_ " Daryl moves to kick the car tire but barefoot in his holey socks thinks better of it before he makes contact. Cowed, he collapses against the trunk, dropping his forehead down on his fists. Beth watches him in silence. The desolation of Daryl Dixon is deafening. He remains there, unmoving, muscles tensed but with absolutely no action to take.

"Daryl.  _Daryl?_ " He doesn't look up. "What do we do?" She looks about her hurriedly, scanning the buildings, scanning the woods in the distance, scanning the mass of walkers advancing slowly in the distance. "Daryl — do we take cover?" Her eyes keenly take in their surroundings. "The fire won't reach the structures further towards the outskirts..." She grips her knife, and keeps her eyes peeled. "Should we head for the woods? Circle back to the direction the herd's comin' from, get behind them?" She looks down at him, " _Daryl_!"

"Can't stay in town," he says dully. He pulls himself up and rises, "Com'on." He tugs at her elbow and leads her at a running pace off the street down side streets and residential alleys, away from the fires and the advancing herd. But once there Beth stops, and thus compelled Daryl does as well, and there, with labored breath and adrenaline still racing from their ambush, temporarily sheltered from the ensuing melee up the road, the two of them regroup and endeavor to construct a plan of action.

Catching his breath, trying to recover himself, Daryl isn't looking at her. He hasn't been looking at her. What he has is broken glass for a weapon. That's how precarious and fragile a spot they're in. "B _e_ th," he urges her, "we gotta keep going."

Five walkers stumble round and come at them from around the corner opposite of the herd's approach. With lethal immediacy Daryl moves into action, pulling one close to him by the remnants of its hair, pulling off half the scalp with it in the process, as he jabs his shard of glass through its eye. When the glass won't retract when he pulls back on it he abandons it and pushes another walker away from him with sharp eyes looking madly for something at his disposal to arm himself with; there is nothing — no stray piece of metal or wood, nothing to use, no boots to stomp with, nothing with which to pummel or bludgeon, gouge or stab. Meanwhile Beth is stabbing at one on her, fending it off, driving her blade through with singular force. By the back of it's jacket Daryl takes one walker and swings it wildly, driving it head first into the protruding branch of a tree. It stays there stuck against the branch as it quivers and dies. Daryl pulls a thrashing female off of Beth, who's fighting back another one, and drags it flailing to an iron porch railing, slamming its head again and again against the railing till the face and skull all but disappear. Consumed by too-long deferred rage, a mad rush of violence courses through him and with blind momentum he moves back to Beth, quickly snatching the knife from her black bloody hands and ends the final walker for her. When all five are dispatched he looks about, ready for more, then seeing no immediate threat flips the hilt in an impressively quick spin and hands the knife back to Beth with a primal nod of finality. When all is seemingly still in their immediate vicinity they scan their surroundings once more, and when no more are visible, Daryl retreats to some immobile despondent darkness within himself and Beth drops to the ground.

If Daryl expected to see her cry or give way to some wave of crushing emotion he'd have been wrong. Beth is all action — as Daryl had been moments before — frantically searching the corpses' bodies, rifling through pockets, scouring for anything of use they can get their hands on. _Nothing._ Wallets. Keys. Watches. No weapons. No food. There's jewelry, but nothing else. Still, Beth pockets the one unbroken lens from a pair of glasses one of them wears; maybe it will help to start a fire at some point.

"Don't bother," he mutters.

She flashes a look at him, but does not stop. Daryl is not incapacitated, he will act when he has to, his instinct to survive (and to keep them both alive) in the face of immediate danger is not deteriorated, but more than that is lost on him. His head's so messed up over what just transpired in that street he can only see th _a_ t, and what's directly before him; anything further off at present is insuperable. But Beth is not so afflicted, she has sprung into action and after the pockets she moves on to their feet. One is barefoot, his feet shredded and missing toes, another wears ballet flats, too impractical and filled with rank goo to trouble with. The one impaled against the tree is shod in the bloody, oozing shreds of what formerly had been canvas shoes, while the other pairs measure much too small for Daryl and not nearly small enough for her; what's more, the holes and separated treads render them less than worthwhile.

" _Klaank! Blaankk! Klaank!_ "

She looks up from her task; Daryl's single-mindedly banging a rock against the back porch fence railing, trying to break free an iron posting. Though he can't get it, still he keeps hammering with unrelenting and fierce intensity. Beth stops and watches him.  _He is not himself._  He's going to draw them to him with the noise he's making.

"Daryl," she speaks steadily, rising and trying to break through to him with her soft, quiet Beth voice. "It's all right. They're gone — we're al _i_ ve."

"We're not alive," he mutters stopping his banging and letting the rock fall from his hand. "We just ain't dead yet."

"Don't say that."

"We got  _nothing_ ," he erupts. "We got a kn _i_ fe, that's _it_. We ain't got  _shoes_ , we ain't got  _artiller_ y, we ain't got a ch _a_ nce."

"We'll get shoes," she says evenly, keeping her eyes on their surroundings. "That's easy," disregarding she just came up short on that front a second earlier. "We'll find weapons; we've done it before."

" _Yeah?_ " he looks at her sharply. "Just how much do you think is out there? Folks like us and assholes like them an' the Governor 've been stockpiling ev'ry piece they find for the past two years."

"We'll find some. Maybe not a bow… " In the darkness — both actual and incorporeal — descending upon them she is compelled to add, "For a while at least." She looks at him, his head hanging down, his fists still clenched, all fight seemingly drained out of him, "... Com'on—" She doesn't touch him; he couldn't abide it if she tried. In the moment, as demoralized as he is, Daryl is beat down, and bleakly alone. Not even allowing her eyes to fall too long in his direction, Beth treads lightly, though in the time frame they have she can't afford to do so long. "We gotta move."

" _Why?_ " he presses. "Ev'ry place 's as bad as this. It don't matter."

"It  _does_ matter. … Eventually you'll remember that. And I'm not going to let you die in the meantime. ... We gotta get off the street; look for some supplies."

"We can't stay here, Beth."

"We can search these houses," she insists. "Go back to those shops. We didn't even scratch the surface—"

" _Look around_ , this town's been picked over already but good. We ain't got the time to spare to go searchin' fer what's been long gone. We gotta go."

"Daryl, if we don't try now it'll be too late. If we try the places away from the fires, we might have ti—"

"B _eth_ , we stick around, it won't matter what we find, we'll never get out. We don't got the numbers to fight our way out of a herd, we will be swarmed. Th _i_ s is our out, we gotta take it." Daryl jerks his head for her to follow then walks stealthily, recovered rock in hand, toward the woods. With reservation, first looking back behind her at the forsaken town, Beth follows after at a quick pace. It isn't her plan, but he  _is_  moving.

When Daryl stops to knock loose and pull out a sprinkler post, Beth leans against an old rusted-out car and brushes the gravel off the bottoms of her feet. "The herd's coming from th _a_ t direction, but the gunshots and the flames will draw all the walkers in the area, there's no one direction—"

Daryl tries the weight of the pipe in his hand, it's solid, and he's thankful it isn't plastic, "Then we'll fight our way through. We ain't stayin'." And at his signal they start to run only to be faced by another small cluster of walkers. In their first unified act since leaving that bedroom, what now seems days ago, Beth and Daryl take formation, backs to each other, and raise their weapons. Daryl strikes first, crushing an already mangled head in with the pipe; Beth takes three stabs and takes out a large one-armed walker furiously clawing and gnashing at her. Another Daryl holds off him while Beth drives the knife in and up through the back of its neck. His adrenaline pumping, Daryl knocks off the hanging fender from the old car, and hoisting it, bashes the heads of the remaining two, then uses it to pin them down, taking them out with Beth whilst kneeling over them on the ground. And then they run. Socked feet running over gravel and asphalt and broken glass then rocks and sticklers and pine needles as they cross over into the woods. They're breathing hard, watching as hulking lumbering shadows move against the outline of the burning town center. Their hearts won't stop racing, his head throbs from where the gun struck him, she's having trouble staying upright feeling the pain from the mighty blow to her back, but they can't quit now.

Daryl tugs Beth to follow, they've got to keep moving, they've got to cover more ground, but Beth pulls back, resisting his prompting. She looks back at the town. The outskirts from which they'd just fled are still mostly untouched — unless the wind shifts dramatically the fire won't reach them, and the walkers are migrating to the flames, inward into the town. She can't easily just leave it all behind when they have nothing. "We could at least look for some gasoline."

"Beth," he asks wearily, walking away, continuing their endless exodus, "what are we gonna do with gas?" She looks at him—  _Hadn't they always been on the lookout for gas? Hadn't that been a part of the larger plan from the start?_  "Where are we goin' in a hurry? Where is there to go?" This may be Beth's biggest shock.

She looks at him, motionless, and utterly betrayed. "You're giving  _u_ p?" The real wound here is not his dejection, she knows that will pass; and it's not the dismissal of said hypothetical vehicle, nor not fortifying themselves with whatever they can, which they should be doing and fast, it's much larger than that. There was between them, she had thought, the unspoken mission to find and reconnect with the group, whoever among them is still alive and out there. Their travels, their walking, their ceaseless journeying was, in part, a tactical measure of survival, but it was also more than that. To rate it all now as aimless and without a purpose is to her near treasonous.

"We can make it on our own, Beth," he tells her wearily, meaning it as some kind of assurance and comfort. "Looking for others..." He never puts words to the rest of that thought.

"You don't know that."

"Oh, I d _o_ n't?" he lashes out at her, swinging the pipe in her face. "Whut was th _a_ t?" he growls, flinging his arm back to where they'd been taken down. "You wanna go out there lookin' for more of tha _t_? 'Cuz that's whut we're gonna find. And them, those assholes we just got taken by, they won't be the worst. Not nearly!" Beth watches him grow dark before her. His eyes flash sharply to her. "What they s _ai_ d? 'Bout _you_? T'weren't wrong. It  _is_  dangerous out here for you."

"It's dangerous out here for _all_  of us."

"N _o_ , I mean, espec'ly for you. An' I don't mean cuz'a your bein' small." He blinks as he looks at her face as he says these things to her, her river eyes watching him as he breaks down the realities of a hyper-masculine dominated world he thinks she doesn't know about. "Beth, there are men out there who'll want to hurt you, who'll hurt me to get at you. Who'll take pleasure in  _breaking_  you."

Beth makes the conscious effort to break a smile — and there amidst the grime and the sweat and the blood and plain fear across her face, the deliberateness of it dazzles in its effort at defiance. "So?"

"' _So?_ " the aggravation he feels towards her right now is so strong he might hit her except that the thing he's trying most to do is protect her. He grits his teeth, exhales and leans in closer, hoping maybe that his intense proximity to her will shake her out of her delusion. "We gotta play it safe." He's practically glaring at her with misplaced aggression. "I can't lose you."

"So you're being s _e_ lf _i_ sh?" she posits, just to provoke him, but he isn't in the mood for her probing plays with rhetoric.

"God damnit, Girl," he lets burst, "use your damned fool head!"

" _Daryl!_ " she shouts back. "Stop shouting at me! This isn't my fault!" Daryl flinches, then visually breaks out of his fury. "We gotta get a plan," she says, resuming her natural tenor. "Daryl, we can go _after_  them." In this moment she doesn't mean their family.  _If Daryl needs his bow this badly, they can redress the indignities they were made to suffer; they can reclaim what is theirs._

" _With what?_ " he rages at her.  _Her intrepidness will get her killed one day._  "B _e_ th, if we couldn't take them when we were armed—" he doesn't even bother finishing the thought, she should be thinking more clearly. Smarter. Safer.

"We'd have them by surprise—"

"What do you think this  _i_ s? A m _o_ v _ie_? 'We'll make it just because we're the good guys?' We're not going to make it. We never were. All this—" he waves his arm meaning everything they've shared and built together in the woods "—'s just a stop gap. A death rattle. Beth, this is  _i_ t. We're here, we got to the end. Look around. Dudn't look like what you expected? Wull guess what? There never was no finish line. You fight until you can't fight no more and then you die. We was never anything any different. There weren't no better life we was gonna get to. Wanna know what all that walking was _for_? All those miles for all those weeks?  _Nothing._  We were never going nowhere and was never gonna get there. We was always heading right here." He leans in to intimidate, "Better get your head right with that."

"No."

"' _No_ '?"

"No. If we were never heading anywhere it doesn't matter. Walking kept us alive."

"Walking got us  _here_."

"Then let's get  _outta_  here."

"Girl, every place you g _o_  is  _here_."

Beth convulses through too many reactions at once. She wants to impale him with words and her fists. She wants to bully him and laugh at him and slap him. But she doesn't. Daryl's turned against himself already, she can't join in. But neither can she save him or get through to him. Not yet. He'll have to do it himself.  _She_  feels they should get what they can while they are able, but more she needs him to fight, not physically — innately he'll always do that; but there is much more to survival than staying alive and she needs him to fight for that, because she's starting to see that will, that hope in him fade, like it was one more thing he'd shrugged off and surrendered to the bandits. In moments of inaction he's hardly there, weighted down by hindsight, and regret and cynical ambivalence.

"Fine," she lets drop coldly. "Should we lie down in the road and wait for death? Is it f _a_ te? We could have let them do it, done us a favor according to you." She looks at him, waiting for some kind of response. " _No_? Fine." And she turns and walks, venturing back into the woods, abandoning her hope and desire for what might still wait for them in town, but holding ever tightly to her _Hope_  and to her greatest desire: to  _Live_.

Since she stalked off to find booze in their early days on the run, Beth never pictured herself walking away from Daryl Dixon again; but if he kept them going in the days after the prison fell, it's falling on her to keep them going now. Daryl can't sink into apathy. He can be sad and self pitying, but he can't not care if he lives or dies. If she walks away he'll follow, and in following — in motion and in action, and in forging a forward path, he'll find himself again.

They walk, knife in her hand, pipe in his, moving swiftly into the woods, into the night with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the socks on their feet, Daryl's indefatigable instincts, and Beth's inextinguishable faith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughh this was a hard one to write — I thought I had it nailed when I started, but I had them talking too long about too many things in the street where they started I had to break it up and reorder several times, and I'm still concerned that maybe the characterization is wavering too closely to OOC, or perhaps is just self-contradictory... Thoughts? Thx!


	10. Chapter 10

They walk through the night, running for stretches, trudging monotonously for most of it, moving in silence. Through the dark hours they come across nothing, only trees, and brush, and uneven terrain unforgiving to unshod feet.

They do not stop, they do not speak, they keep a steady pace. Above them the stars and moon shift, moving through the dark Georgia night as the long hours pass. There's no talk of stopping, no thought of sleep. Neither could close their eyes if the tried, so they keep on. It seems forever ago that they had walked through the woods together, talking and playing one of her childhood word games, two nights in a real bed still hopefully ahead of them, though in fact it was only several hours earlier. So much had changed in that small frame of time. A thing they have come to realize is inevitable, but a fact that is no less jarring each time it confronts them.

They are alive, a thing to be thankful for, but still the night and the journey weigh heavy upon them and their spirits are low and their outlooks dim; the long unmarked path ahead of them is dreary, dismal, and taxing.

They encounter few walkers in the night. Near ten they come across two, a man and a woman, ominously bound to the thick trunk of a tree, held there by tightly wound and knotted synthetic rope, left forever to claw and scratch and snarl into the forest air. They leave them be, passing by without so much as a second glance. Late in the night they found another, a half torso really, dragging itself mindlessly through the underbrush. With a quick thrust Beth kills it, wipes her blade, and presses on. The only real threat was a skirmish early in the morning, maybe three o'clock or so, when four came at them out of the darkness. They were old, and clearly decaying, it hadn't taken much to kill them.

But walkers weren't all they are keeping watch for. Somewhere out there are the eight who fell upon them, and unknown numbers of other heartless, merciless savages. They walk lightly, as he has taught her how, moving without sound, and always on the alert. As the first beams of light break through the darkness their hollow stomachs churn and growl, they haven't eaten since late morning the day before.

"I have to stop." He treads on. "Daryl, I have to stop." Beth does stop, and crumples to the ground. Daryl stops, looks around, then retraces the few steps back to her. In time he squats, and minutes later he sits.

Daryl stares at his feet, at his empty hands, listening to the morning sounds of the forest, birds chirping, the leaves rustling in the light breeze. Though the sky is growing ever lighter the air is still cool from the night, and now sweaty and still his skin grows chilled. His head still aches some from the blow it took, compounded by his intense thirst. Daryl touches his scalp, feeling where the blood has dried and matted in his hair.

When finally he lifts his eyes to her the sight of her, especially in the early light of this new morning, is hard to take. Her cheeks are hollow, there are dark circles under her solemn eyes, she is covered in blood, and her head, her poor head, is pitiful to behold. He watches as Beth twists some, raising her shirts to rub her lower back. What is revealed there turns his stomach. The bruise is massive and deep, deep purple with splotches of red and blue, and outlined in patches of green. How she walked all night with that he doesn't know. Beth winces as she touches it gingerly, tying to manage an angle from which she can see it.

"I wouldn't look," he grunts.

It's a relief to Beth to finally hear his voice again. She looks up, "Is it bad?"

Daryl only blinks, and somberly nods his head. Heavily he pushes himself up, feeling his age, feeling the miles in the stiffness of his muscles and the aching in his back and knee. Beth's eyes follow him. After sitting it's hard to put full weight on his dead raw feet, but he needs to move, rigid and aged though his movement may be. He crosses to her and wordlessly holds out his pipe to her, expecting the knife in exchange; Beth makes the switch and he limps into the wilderness. He didn't need to ask if she is hungry.

...

When he returns he finds her unmoved, sitting upright, sprinkler pipe gripped in her limp fallen hand, looking into nothingness. She looks up when she hears him approach.

"Nuthin'." Again he sinks himself lower to the ground in a squat. He'd kept on the lookout for game the whole night as they traveled, as had she. Daryl had hoped they'd be lucky and spot an owl, but they'd seen nothing. Just one squirrel that had scurried away before the knife Daryl'd thrown hit the spot where it had been. It seems as though they'll be hungry for some time more. "Spotted some turkey tracks. Can't catch no turkey throwin' knives. Wild pig sure. Didn't see nuthin' else." He looks in front of her, nodding at where a fire might have been had she built one while he was gone, "Weren't holdin' out much hope were you."

"Huh?" He nods again. "Oh. Sorry."

Daryl once more drops himself to the ground, lying on his back and propping his head on his arms; there's nothing to cook, and though there's still a chill in the air the sun will warm them soon; a fire at this point isn't worth the trouble. They sit. Beth slowly pulls off her socks, hesitant to see the damage. On top of the blisters she already had are fresh cuts and deep indentations of twigs and stones. She rubs her left foot, but pulling her right foot puts too much strain on her already aching back, so she removes her sweater, balls it up as a pillow and lays herself on her stomach for a rest. It isn't comfortable, but neither would be any other position she could take. Dirt is all they have for the moment, so she'll take what rest she can manage.

As exhausted and spent as they are, neither Beth nor Daryl sleep. There is no perimeter alert line, their stomachs are cruelly empty, and they're still very much wired from the events of the night before and all the hours they were on edge listening to every sound, every snap and rustle of the forrest as they traveled, so the best they manage is a light doze, never really giving over to sleep.

Eventually he's lightly kicking at her feet. Beth stirs, and opens her bleary eyes, shielding them from the sun, now much higher in the sky, watching him jerk his head for them to get moving. Beth rubs her eyes, pushes herself up by sheer force of will, and reaches for her socks.

They head east, the sun high and beating down on their backs. "M'bye we could track them," she says. "Follow them, get our stuff back."

Daryl grimaces,  _Why is she back to this?_  "No." His answer is blunt, and he walks on; he is not opening this up for discussion. "We keep our distance. 'f we get lucky we'll never see them again."

Beth follows behind, trying to take some care where her tender feet fall. "We _were_  lucky, they let us go."

"They hobbled us at the knees." He doesn't even look back at her to say it.

"It would have been so easy for them to have killed us. They didn't. I'm grateful for that."

He spins round on her, not believing they're back to this; Daryl's incredulity is confrontational, "You gr _a_ teful to someone who cut off your h _a_ nds? Your feet, your  _e_ yes? Your ability to defend yourself? To  _survive_? Because that's exactly what they did. We're not following them. Get it out of yer head."

...

When they stop again it's late afternoon. It took them close to a day to reach a stream and they both drop to the bank and drink in huge slurping gulps of handfuls of water. Daryl splashes his face and neck, Beth peels off her pants and steps right into the cool water, faltering as she warily maneuvers over the sharp stones and pebbles, lethal now to her shredded feet. The cool water is piercing, but it's the first relief she's felt all day. Beth wishes the water were deeper, but in the middle the water is about a foot deep, and pulling off her tops and flinging them to the bank Beth sits in the quick running stream and leans herself backwards into it. When the flowing water hits her scalp, moving steadily against her with the current, her eyes roll back and flutter in pleasure, and Beth lies there, letting herself drift afloat in the stream, bobbing just above the rocks and river stones.

Daryl watches her through the corners of his eyes, watching her small hands flutter through the water to keep herself afloat and in place. He observes too her nearly naked body, glistening in the late day sun. She is his Beth still to be sure, and he feels no differently for her, but those things he feels for her seem so far off at present; it is hard to watch her, hard to see her as beautiful in this low flowing backwoods creek after the night they had. She is alive, and not too severely injured, and that should be enough, that should be everything, but it's difficult for him to see her as anything but trampled on. She was terrorized last night, and he hadn't stopped it. He hadn't been able to stop it.

Daryl looks away, down at his own bloody feet. He should be using this time to hunt, but he can't leave Beth so exposed as she is, alone in the river. He'll have to wait till she comes in and has a weapon in her hands. He should have made her take the pipe with her anyway. He glances up at her again, she's drinking more water, then scrubs herself off, then step by careful step makes her way back to the embankment. There, where she sits in her soaked and too large underpants on the pebbly shore, Beth finally, and delicately, pulls off her socks. Her feet are a mess, but it feels good to dunk them freely in the cool creek water. Droplets drip down her drying body as she sits there, slightly shivering, her body stiff partially from their traveling and partially from the icy creek water, waiting for the late afternoon sun to dry her.

She looks up at him when he drops her shirt in her lap. "You should wash your feet."

Daryl shakes his head and handles the knife in his hands, pointing her attention to where he left the pipe at her side. "Heading out."

"We didn't see any tracks out there."

Daryl only shrugs.  _They've got to eat something._ It's been more than twenty-four hours since either of them has had anything but a half stick of chewing gum, and they hadn't been exactly well-fed before that. Daryl heads off leaving Beth to scrub and ring out her tattered socks, after which she lays them out to dry on a large dark rock positioned to have been in the sun all day. She pulls on a shirt and in underwear and a top Beth moves several paces from the embankment to what she's setting up as their camp, and digs two holes and their connecting tunnel. Barefoot Beth gathers kindling and dry grass and leaves. She uses the edge of the sprinkler pipe against a branch to create wood shavings, then methodically adjusts the angle of the glasses lens above the nest of tinder and kindling to catch the sun before it starts to drop below the tree line. After some time she does see a spark catch and she feeds it and lets it breath, adding fuel to it as the tiny flames catch and grow. When the fire is built and thriving, and she's collected enough fuel wood to keep it burning, Beth kneels at the deep mossy roots of the nearest large tree and digs again. She pulls out several worms and holding them between her thumb and index finger pierces them with splinters of wood. Beth then scours the ground and the shrubbery for twigs, lots and lots of thin straight twigs, a ton of them. When she has enough, Beth returns, stuck worms included, to the stream bank.

...

Daryl returns maybe an hour later, maybe longer. He doesn't have any meat. From his pockets he pulls out some leatherleaf berries and elderberry blooms and berries; there aren't a lot. "All that's out there. These're safe." He pulls Beth's hand up and dumps half the pitiful bounty into her cupped palm. "Look'a them. Know what they look like." Beth knows elderberries, he doesn't need to teach her that. "Berries an' blooms are good from both; leaves and stalks 're toxic."

Beth nods, and stores the berries in the turned-up corner of her shirt as she rises from the pile of large green ground leaves she'd collected carefully for some yet unrealized purpose, and walks again to the shore to once more check on the fish trap she'd constructed. There in the shallows is a kind of M-shaped fort-like structure constructed of twigs with a small opening at the center of the M's two peaks. Fish are meant to swim in, but not be able to find the hole again through which to swim out. Inside the trap the worms are still there as bait on their tiny pikes, no fish in sight. She climbs back up to him. "Nothing."

In silence they eat the berries. Their churning stomachs seeming to grow even angrier with the insult of this light and paltry fare. When the blossoms and the fruit are gone, Beth adjust the sticks her socks now hang from as they dry over the fire. "You should wash yours."

Daryl looks at her under cocked brows, then rises, rinses his feet and the bloody rags in the water, rings the things out, and drapes them over a rock near the fire. Crouching, he adds more dry bark to the flames; if it dies out, they'll have no way to relight it till the sun is high enough the next day. And the nights are getting colder. He sits again, and looks at her. "Gonna get some sleep?"

Beth turns her head toward him, looking away from the fire; she blinks, and shakes her head. They sit.

...

Beth stirs, her stomach isn't letting her sleep as she lays curled up near the low burning fire. The stars have appeared, she is exhausted, but she cannot sleep. Her body is crying out for food. True they haven't had much to eat since the prison fell, and she's used to making do with little, but they don't usually go a full day without eating, and the endless walking sometimes catches up with a vengeance. The ravenous clenching of her stomach is making her head light and her body aches from hunger pains. As she lies there, curled into herself, her body brings her to the brink of tears and her mind hazily drifts back to that can of peaches they'd surrendered, and to the tootsie rolls they never got the chance to eat. She thinks of all the food that still may be left in that town behind them, then memories of food begin just to seep into her conscious memory, their tastes and textures so vivid on her tongue ... the deer barbecued at the prison ... the meal of peanut butter and jam she'd shared with Daryl in the funeral home ... then back further, to before... fresh baked bread ... olive oil drizzled pasta with garden tomatoes and basil ... her mother's potato soup... Before she realizes it her body is silently heaving and there are tears trailing down her face. Beth brushes them off and pushes herself up.  _Crying will not help._ In the moonlight of early night she goes back to the river to check the trap. Still it's empty. She crosses back to the large tree and again digs in between the roots. Daryl, who's seated upright tending the fire, keeping the embers alive, watches her.

"Can't eat any plants you're gettin' from the roots of trees." She digs on. "Beth."

"I'm not." She shifts through what she's dug up and with a handful of something Beth goes once more to the stream, rinses off the dirt, and returns to the remnants of their fire, piercing one by one on a long twig the handful of still wriggling worms. Before she thinks too long on it Beth holds the skewered things over the embers. He looks at her, and feeling his eyes on her she looks back. "I can't help it. I need to eat something."

"You balk at mud snake."

Beth looks at him. "This is where we are now."

He knows it is. This  _is_  where they are now. "We'll find somethin' tomorrow."

Beth nods. What else is there to say? If they don't have 'tomorrow' the todays they're living become too grim to bear. Tentatively she pulls one from the skewer and puts it in her mouth. She chews. It tastes like dirt.  _Better not to chew the next one._ She swallows, and eats another, offering the stick to Daryl. He takes one, leaving the remainders for her. Beth takes a glance at Daryl, "You done this?"

He knits his brows toward the worms for clarification, she nods. "Mm,mm. Gr _a_ sshoppers." He bites his thumb, thinking. "C'n also eat crickets. Termites."

" _Mm_."

In spite of himself he lets out a dry smirk. " _Hmph._ "

Beth throws the cleared stick into the dying fire. She doesn't feel much better, and the lingering taste of dirt in her mouth is unpleasant, but at least she _did_  something. At least she's not curled up and crying.  _Tomorrow. Tomorrow Daryl 'll catch something, tomorrow there'll be fish in the trap. Tomorrow..._

Blinking, he watches her profile, and gruffly clears his throat. "Sorry 'bout your hair."

Beth touches it now, like she's been delaying thinking about it. "... It'll grow."

Through a sideways guarded glance Daryl studies her. "You didn't seem scared." Daryl thinks back to that frozen expression on her face, to her feet spread apart ready to carry her into action, to the way she'd stated her demands. That girl doing those things wasn't the young girl he'd first seen on Hershel's farm, calling them 'Mr. Grimes' and 'Mr. Dixon.' She wasn't the girl who'd sung in the prison yard with her sister the first night there, and maybe not even the girl he'd escaped the prison with. All those elements are still there, Beth Greene hasn't lost herself, like so many other survivors have, but she has changed. She's strong. And the fact that no one expects it from her makes her all the stronger. But still...

"I'h was trying to live," she answers simply. "I was trying to think what you were thinking. Do what you or Rick would do."

Daryl pokes at the embers, "I was thinkin' ' _Oh shit_ '. I was thinkin' ' _This time we're really dead_.'"

She looks at him. Her soft eyes blink in the darkness. "But we're n _o_ t dead; and we're still together." Softly, and unassumingly Beth reaches out to touch Daryl's hand. In all the hours that have passed since the confrontation they have yet to touch; he does not receive it well.

Daryl recoils some, and stares into the glow of the dormant fire. Yes, they are alive, but heavy things still weigh oppressive and dark on his mind. He pulls on the ends of his beard, "This can't keep on, Beth. ... You know it."

"I d _o_?" she challenges softly.

His blue eyes are fixed on something only he can see. "... They'll use you against me."

Beth stops and looks at him. "Who will?"

Daryl bites on the side of his thumb, "All of 'em — the world. They'll use you against me." His eyes shut, for a long time. "And I won't be able to stop it." Beth's old words run once more through his head, battering him with blunt force ... ' _You're going to be the last man standing..._ '

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really want to thank all reviewers, it definitely keeps me writing!

"Hey," Daryl nudges her awake in the morning. "Look'a whut you did."

Beth rubs her eyes, pushes herself up, and looks in the direction he's pointing the knife. Over the fire he rebuilt roast three small fish. Their skin is crisping and wrinkling in the heat as they cook and little drops of oil drip and sizzle on the embers. Nothing ever sounded, looked, or smelled so good. Beth looks at him then back to the fish, the smile she wears is disarming.

They eat quickly, licking their lips and their fingers, savoring every morsel they can find. Three small fish shared between two people aching for sustenance do not amount to much, but it's  _something_ and already it's a considerably better start to the day than the one they'd lived through the day before.

After breakfast Beth disassembles the fish trap, scattering the twigs in the current, then uses her knife to cut fabric from her outer shirt, producing two foot-length strips. She then layers the large multi-lobed leaves from the night before atop them.

Daryl watches her with mild interest, "That bloodroot?"

Beth looks up, "Uh, huh." The green leaves, looking almost like lily pads, grow low to the earth beneath white blossoms resembling something close to a daisy. She'd found a patch of them as she had searched for fuel and kindling for the fire, and had spent some time collecting the leaves.

He nods quietly. "Smart." In its history the plant has been used to treat ulcers, skin infections, and as a non-ingestible oral antiseptic.

Next, foot by foot, she holds the leaves to her raw and cut soles, keeping them in place against her with the cut fabric strips, then, with some maneuvering, carefully she tugs her socks on over them for the purpose of extra padding and guard against wear and infection. Daryl observes, and does the same with the half pile of bloodroot she'd left unused. If it doesn't work, and the leaves shift and move as they walk, it won't cost them anything; it can't much hurt to try.

Picking up his unimpressive excuse for a weapon, Daryl pops his small twig in the back-side of his mouth and chews idly on it as he studies the sky. "Stay by the water," he thinks aloud. From the side of his mouth Daryl spits to the ground, "Follow the creek, chances are we'll come across some campsites. See what we c'n git."

Beth rises and stands on her oddly wrapped feet. She would have been better off binding them she realizes, but the weather is shifting, and she can't afford to cut up all her clothes. She wishes for those wool sweaters they surrendered.  _Such bad luck—_  "Have we done this stretch of the river already?"

Daryl spits again, "No."

She turns, looking around them, scanning the woods. "How do you know?"

Daryl looks at her, bobbing the twig back and forth in his mouth with his tongue. "'Cuz. This is far west of where we been. We haven't seen this creek b'fore." He jerks his head, "Co'mon." Beth follows after him, and they start their day's journey, keeping eyes out for game trails, walker tracks, and signs of the living, collecting and eating what plant life they know to be safe as they go.

Daryl walks with shoulders squared, his back straight, leading them downstream. Beth follows, keeping her eyes on the winged stitching on his back, wishing he would speak to her, wishing for the silence between them to end, for the space dividing them to close. She doesn't care what he speaks of, she longs to hear that singular deep and scratchy, soft and boyish, volatile and brash voice of his. But it's the brook that babbles, and it's the birds that call. And the rest is mostly silence.

As they walk more and the hours pass, the only thing keeping Beth from thinking continually of food is the pain in her feet and the dull, sometimes piercing ache in her back. They need weapons, they need more food, they need supplies and they need a plan. They need to find their ways back to one another. They need many things. But paramount to all that, may be their need for shoes.

Beth's western boots were never the best for long distance walking — though well worn-in they gave her blisters when covering so many miles, and there was little to no give in the soles — but what she wouldn't do for them now. Daryl hasn't said anything, but she knows he's missing his boots. Every step he takes reveals the bloody undersides of his feet. They need footwear, they're much slower without it and slower is dead. Nor will it do to walk around with bloody cut up feet; they could get infected, they could become bigger targets for walkers. While it seems trivial to weapons and food, this is something they have to change, and if they can't get it done in the woods, they both know eventually they'll have to venture back to a highway, back to a town.

For the time being though, they press on on the path they've marked for themselves, staying under the canopy of trees, sticking close to the creek, trusting something will turn up.

It's while scrambling over a small bank of rocks and boulders at a bend in the stream that they spot and then stalk a lone walker. It's something female, staggering and hobbling in the distance through the trees. With a silent signal between them they go after it, staying up wind of it as it lugs itself on through the afternoon shadows. When close behind it Daryl pulls the thing by the collar of its tattered camping gear and drives the knife in soundly, down through the back of it's skull. It's a lucky find, and a lucky kill. Had the thing been one in a mass of walkers they might have had to have let it pass, avoiding it rather than killing it, but as it was she was on her own. The thing is about Beth's size, somewhat taller, and from the limited decay she doesn't appear to have been dead too long. The face is hollow and sickly grey, but it hasn't yet begun to rot. Daryl observes no clear signs of death, no bite marks anyway, though there are traces of vomit on her face and on her front. Most likely she ate something toxic, some plant or berry.

 _It's a shame_ , Beth thinks,  _for it — no, this_ woman _— to have made it so long, seemingly on her own, just to have it ended by hunger, or by chance. To be in the world with all its varieties of monsters, living and dead, and to be killed merely by eating the berry from a leaf with three prongs and not the berry from the one with five._  The same could happen to them. They could die of hunger or exposure, or blood infection if their feet aren't tended to. And unwittingly it strikes her:  _Would that be better? Is the fate of this crumpled figure before her not so much a shame but unseeming grace?_ The idle thought stays with her, taking hold as Beth watches Daryl inspect the body.

She doesn't mean it. Of course. These thoughts of ' _better_ '. These considerations of ' _grace_ '. It's only a passing thought...

Her mind needs not turn this way. Though she's hungry, Beth knows starvation is still far off, as the deep chill of winter is also. They have time, she and Daryl, to change the things that beleaguer them. They will find food, they will find shelter, they will make no more mistakes, and this lonely hapless fate before them will not become their own. She need not consider its merits.

But still she finds herself wondering, involuntarily, as her body aches and her empty stomach churns, as she thinks on how she came to be in this circumstance, if another sort — an accidental end, w _ou_ ld be best... given all they now know of the way this world works, of it's many ways of killing and downtrodding.  _If Daryl's right_ — _if there is no good end to reach — w_ _ould it be better to die of something mundane, something altogether passive and nonviolent?_

Beth shakes her head.  _Since when did she start looking to be passive? Since when does she consider easy ways out? Why are thoughts of this nature finding footing with her?_  She turned her back on that two years ago.

Beth isn't looking for a painless fearless way to die. It is not for that she has been searching in these woods these long months. These past two years she has not been fighting for a way to die on her own terms, it's  _to_   _live_  that's kept her fighting. It must still be.

Beth pries herself from her morbid reverie and drops beside Daryl and the unlucky figure between them. Daryl searches the clothes and pack, Beth goes straight for the feet, unlacing the hiking boots double time. There should be no easy way to die. Life is not easy. It never was. But it is not to be given up on, it is to be fought for and protected. It is to be tended. There is no 'out' to look for.

What's left of the thing's skin threatens to slip off with the boots, but Beth maneuvers them carefully and the socks help keep the epidermis free.  _Things are not that bad. As they now stand, circumstances are not too dire to recover from._ Carefully Beth inspects the boots; she has to be careful, they get blisters just sitting these days it seems, and as cut and raw as her feet already are, she can't afford any errant walker blood near her exposed skin. Satisfied she moves to tie them on, but Daryl knocks her hands away leaving the boots where they drop.

There is little salvageable from the clothes. The pack she's carrying unfortunately looks to have been snagged on or ripped by something; there's a huge tear down one side and there's little left within it. Inside at the bottom is a folded emergency blanket, a bandana, and a paperback book. The outer smaller pocket, still in tact, contains a travel sewing kit in a small tin, a compass, a magnifier, a small pocket knife, a baggie with four pain medication tablets, and three packets of instant oatmeal. In the clothes pockets there's a key chain with a mini flashlight, and a folded picture of a man. It isn't much, but it's a start. It isn't nothing.

They collect their bounty — the pack and shoes, and Daryl cuts off the flannel shirt the corpse wears as its outer layer — and retrace their steps back to the stream. "Here," Daryl tells her, "sit." Daryl seats her on rocks by the water's edge and there he takes her feet in his lap, pulling off her socks, the leaves and all. He washes her feet then leaves them in the icy water to soak. He uses one of the scraps she'd cut as rag, dipping it in the creek and ringing it tightly then brushing over the insides of the boots. He's careful not to get them too wet, but he brushes over the lining, inspecting the rag for blood or other fluids each time he pulls it out. Satisfied, he sets them aside to dry and leaves her thus with her legs soaking in the cool forest stream. "Stop here a while," he says, squinting up into the sun. "Eat som'in'; let 'em dry."

Beth pulls an oatmeal packet from the bag, tears it open, careful not to spill any of the contents, and dips her cupped hand into the cool water to dribble some into the packet. She scoops in a little more, then shakes it some and lets it sit. She produces the remainder of the berries she has from their walk and divides them between them. Beth hands the cold oatmeal to Daryl but he shakes his head.

"Go a'head," he nods. "You first."

"Uh, uh," she refuses and passes the packet to him again. Daryl looks at her, through his falling dirty hair, studying her, then takes the packet, dipping two fingers in and scooping the mush into his mouth. Beth looks at him, waiting with a hidden smile for some kind of reaction to register on his face, "How is it?"

Daryl snorts, "Pretty much whut ch'yad expect."

Beth chuckles, and he pops a palmful of berries in his mouth. He takes one more scoop of oats then hands it off to her. Beth eats the remainder, dipping her index finger in, slipping the sticky cereal between her lips. As hungry as they are it's hard to stop at one half packet each, knowing there's two more just waiting for them, but these two are well-trained in self-discipline and they ration what they've got. Rationing is a duplicitous thing by nature: Pessimistic in one respect, in its expectation food shortages will persist, in another respect hopeful, in its trust that having stored food it will be there when it's needed. They'd rationed those peaches and crackers, saved the cigarettes and candies, in the end they'd lost them all. Undeniably it would have been better that day to have had full stomachs and empty pockets. Keeping those two packets of instant processed oatmeal while their stomachs are as empty as they are, having been reduced as they had to eating worms the night before, is an act of trust, and hope. It is their perseverance.

Beth finishes the berries as her feet lightly flutter in the water. Daryl watches the bend and arch of her toes in the cool clear splashes. He watches the sky; somewhere high above them a bird flies, soaring in the clouds above. It's too high, too bright in the sky to see what kind, but it is beautiful. Even if it's a buzzard, circling around, preying on something dead; in that blue sky above this earth, not among all this, it is beautiful. Daryl looks away. He tears his filthy socks off and plunges his torn-up feet into the stream, letting the current gently tug them as they drift.

Keeping her feet in the water, taking all the pleasure from it she can, Beth reaches into the hiking pack, reaching for the small plastic baggie. She tucks the four pills safely into an inseam pocket, then reaches down, and dips the baggie into the water, scooping it back out as a sort of canteen. She smiles at the success and offers it to her love.

Daryl just scoffs and instead bends down and dunks his head into the water, drinking up the stream like an animal and pulling back and shaking off like the neighborhood stray. Beth laughs, a little, and drinks from it herself, refilling it several times as she takes deep generous gulps. The water spills down her face as she drinks, and drips down her graceful long bent-back neck. Daryl watches as her throat constricts as thirstily she swallows. In silence, watchful, Daryl licks the remaining water from his lips, and wipes his dripping brow with the back of his hand. Then he's back at work.

Daryl takes two bloodroot leaves from where they'd dropped to the ground and chews them up with his front teeth. Spitting out any trace juices in his mouth, he pats his lap for Beth to return her feet to him. She does, and as they lie dripping in his lap he lifts each one applying the crushed juices of the plant to her open cuts and blisters. Beth starts a little at the first sting and Daryl lifts her feet together to him and blows softly on the burn. Beth slackens and he keeps at it. When satisfied he's cleaned and dressed the sores as best he can, Daryl rips apart the flannel shirt he'd cut off the hiker and gently binds her feet, only then pulling her old tattered socks on after. It is then that he brings the first boot, still slightly damp, to her foot.

Beth loves him. She just absolutely does. She loves him for his care, for his integrity, for his faithful, loyal, steadfast heart — guarded and hard to reach but so open once it is. She loves him because in these days when he can't find anything good to think on and he is unable to love himself he would not allow her to hazard her feet inside those boots till he made sure she would be safe. And she watches him adjust the boots, feeling for fit, looking for flaws; there's still plenty of tread left on the soles but the boots are too large, by a full size or more. But better too large than too small. She cuts more from the flannel shirt and works at stuffing the toes and heels. They add more strips until the boots fit tolerably, then Daryl ties the laces tightly at her ankles. These are good boots; they will serve her well. They will keep her going.

Beth winces as she rises, her back still hurting her, and takes a few steps in them, trying these godsends out. Wearable. More than. She flashes a smile at Daryl. First the fish, now shoes. These things are huge. Precious invaluable fuel for their spirits and for their travels.

Daryl swallows any smile in return, but he nods. He's not there yet. He cannot smile, but he watches her, blinking at her and her lasting youth, and at the ease with which she seems always to recover.

As he sets about better wrapping his own feet, binding them and tying them with rags, Beth uses safety pins from the sewing kit to piece together the pack as best it can be, and squares away the meager start to the stash they will rebuild. It's time to move on. Beth slings the pack over her shoulders and Daryl, with the new knife pocketed, and the pipe in hand, and she with her knife her new boots and a baggie of water, begin again their walk, continuing down stream.

It has been a good day, Beth thinks as she walks, admiring the light where it sparkles on the ripples in the water. But Daryl still needs shoes. Maybe getting him those will get him back closer to himself. Though he'll never be quite himself without a bow in his hands.

Through the afternoon, every walker they find has worn its shoes into the ground, or are too small or too large for Daryl Dixon. At one point she'd suggested they grab him some too-small tennis shoes in not too terrible shape and bend the backs down, or cut them out to make a kind of slip-on, that at least would give him some coverage, but he only made it a few paces in them; it was awkward and slowed him down — no good, should they have to run, and sooner or later, they always end up running — and in the end he opted to go on as he had been rather than to persist with that.

It will be two more days of quiet walking before they find him something workable. By then his feet will be a muddy bloody mess. But the score is worth it. The boots he finally dons are near the perfect size, and come off a corpse in a vehicle on the side of some old country road, an apparent suicide, or execution. They're in good shape, and while they stink from having long contained the appendages of a rotting corpse, they're clear of walker blood.

Mostly Daryl and Beth continue to stay off the roads entirely. The road is where people are, but it is also where the things that once were people are, and after two meals of de-winged termites when there were no fish to catch and no game to hunt and the oatmeal had run out, they will reach the inevitable conclusion they need to widen their search. They need things: shoes, supplies, weapons. Beth doesn't hold out too much hope for finding weapons right away, but she's confident they will given time.

Their venture back to the roads is brief, and calculated. They circle round to it, and lie in wait for more than half an hour before stepping out from the cover of the woods. All goes smoothly. They find two cars to search, no sign of the living, and not so many dead they can't handle it. On top of the boots, which by far make the best haul, they acquire a real canteen, a tire iron, a tarp, a lighter still a quarter of the way full, a stubbed-out cigarette Daryl has no qualms about finishing, a blanket, and twine. Beth also finds, crumpled under one of the seats, a one-third bag of stale goldfish crackers. They are gone within seconds. The taste of salt and grease now foreign to their tongues and lips.

...

Night falls on their second day after the bandits. Fish in the morning. Boots for Beth. A small cache of supplies. Oatmeal and berries some time midday. Foraged hickory nuts and another half packet of oatmeal at night, with some sampling of termites cooked within the sewing tin tucked within the embers. They're keeping at it.

The moon is thin, in two more nights there will none, and above them the sky is dark and inky. Beth lies there, tucked under the weightless metallic blanket, trying to sleep, trying to get her muscles to relax, to lose the sensation they are still in motion, still walking and climbing and running and stepping.

Daryl hasn't spoken in hours. Feels like days. She'd offered to take first watch but he'd only scowled at her and thrust the pack and blanket at her. Something else they need is a new perimeter line to string.

An hour passes; for some time Beth drifts lightly in and out of something almost like slumber. She tries again at adjusting herself against the hard ground where she lies trying to fall asleep. Distantly she watches the embers of their fire slowly dim as gradually they die out. "Do you," she glances at him, where he sits nearby, his knees up and held in position by his arms, then she looks up to the stars, "do you think there's anyone still left out there?" It's rare that Beth brings up the others anymore, it always gets to him, so at some point she just stopped, but tonight she doesn't care. She can't get their extended family out of her head.

Quietly, Daryl looks up from his glower, glancing at her, then looks away, off into the distance. He doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to talk to all. But Beth doesn't fall asleep as he wishes she would. He watches as she sits up again and pulls their knife from where it's plunged into the ground. She holds it in her hand a while, looking at it, feeling it's familiar weight, then raises it, tugs on a longer strip of blonde hair from the back of her head and saws at it vigorously, wincing some as she does. Slowly the extra lengths of hair fall, sprinkling on her shoulders, her jeans, and about her on the ground. She pulls another piece and awkwardly saws at it.

"Whut're ya doin'?"

Beth looks at him, mildly surprised he's interested in anything she's doing. He hasn't been talking to her. Not really. Aside from tending to her feet he really hasn't been touching her, or even looking at her much. He's looking out for her, watching her back and watching where she steps, but in other ways, he's shut down. "It's all uneven. At least it can be the same length." She goes back to it, struggling with the angles and the tension.

Daryl exhales and rises, "Here. Give it here." He takes the knife from her and grips a long chunk of blonde and positions the blade. "Here," he takes her hand and pulls it to the back of her head to secure the strands at her scalp to limit the pull. And he saws. Bit by bit, getting her hair to roughly the same length, keeping it as long as possible (which is not very). "Carol, m'ybe," he lets slip in a mutter.

"Huh?"

"Carol's still out there."

Beth tries to move her head to see him but she can't the way he's got her gripped. "How do you know? How do you know Carol's alive?"

Uncomfortably Daryl coughs. "She wasn't there, when the prison fell."

Now Beth pulls away so that she can see him, and Daryl, knife in one hand, cut strands of blonde hair still in the other backs off a few steps. "What does that mean, she wasn't there? Where was she?"

Daryl hedges, this isn't an easy story to tell. "During the epidemic, when you was quarantined with the kids," Daryl pauses, scratching at his lower lip while Beth's large blue eyes watch him in expectation, "Rick an' her went on a run." Beth waits for more. "Rick came back without 'er."

"I don't git it; why?"

"'C _u_ z." It's so hard for Daryl to say. "Of what he foun' out." He looks at her beneath his long falling greasy hair. "It was her. Karen an' David. It was Carol who done it."

Beth doesn't know how to receive this news. "Carol?" Miserably, Daryl nods.

"Rick gave 'er a car. Some supplies. They split out on the road."

" _Rick told her not to come back_?"

Daryl's unexpectedly struck by her reaction. "She killed two of our own. Defenseless. Sick."

"It's  _Carol._ "

Daryl's voice softens and breaks, he's so torn over this already, " _How could he bring her back_?"

"We brought  _Merle_  in, after what he did to Maggie and Glenn.  _Rick_ was going to give Michonne up to the Governor. We let in the Governor's people, even after what they did to us. We would've done it  _twice,_ if things had... It's  _Carol_ ," she says quietly but emphatically.

"This is coming from _you_?" Daryl's guilt rares up.  _Maybe he should have fought Rick harder on this. Why hadn't he gone to look for her?_  "Girl who doesn't kill walkers for fun. The girl who thinks burying them is 'beautiful', who wants to cover up rotting corpses and give 'em a prayer? You'd let someone back into the prison, with all those kids, with _Judith_ , who killed the unarmed sick? People you _knew_ , and  _lived_  with?"

Consciously Beth quiets her voice; it's done, she doesn't mean to accuse him. "Ih'm not saying it's r _i_ ght, but Daryl..." Beth blinks solemnly, "she did it to protect us."

He can't look at her. His words are near inaudible. "I know."

"It's Carol," she says again gravely.

"I know."

Beth looks at him, "Why didn't you say this sooner? We could've found her."

Daryl pokes at the fire with a twig. "She 's in a car. The trail was cold when we started. We can't find her."

"But you think she's all right?"

"Yeh," he grunts. "She's all right."

Beth looks off into the distance, thinking over this revelation "... Do you think she found a group? Do you think she saw the explosions?" She glances back at him, "Do you think she knows we're not there anymore?"

He's exhausted, has been exhausted. He wants to reserve his energy for finding supplies, for keeping them fed, for getting them weapons, and back in the routine they'd had before they so inauspiciously ventured into that damned town. "I don't know, Beth," he sighs. "I dunno. Now com'on," and he takes steps toward her and gently turns her head back into position as he works to finish the job on her head.

"... Do you think ..." she asks, as she's already broached the subject, "... Maggie...?"

As he stands now in this moment, with the way things are, everything in him is telling him ' _No, Maggie didn't make it_ ' but he can't tell her that. Not right now, not this night. But neither will he lie. At present, the best he can muster for her is ambivalence.

"Dunno..."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks! (Hope that brief 3-paragraph flash forward didn't confuse.)


	12. Chapter 12

" _Beth—_ " Daryl whispers into her ear. " _Beth—_ " Beth stirs then jolts awake, immediately reaching straight for the pipe, her shorn head screwing left and right, taking a read on any imminent threat. Daryl's face though, when her darting eyes settle on him, is soft and not in fight mode. His eyes lift and he whispers, " _Look up_." Breathless, Beth does, and there above her in the starry moonless night is a flying flash. Not a plane. There are no more planes. There's another. The word comes to her—

" _Meteor_..."

Mythic yellowish streaks radiate through the night sky.  _One— Two— Then a third—_

Beth pushes herself all the way up. " _God..._ " Her mouth stays open in an awed and distant smile as she looks up, keeping her wide eyes trained on this natural wonder, a moment of beauty and magic now so rare and so very precious. She holds her breath...  _Four—_

They watch together in silence, straining their eyes, synchronously entranced by the majesty above them, by the haunting otherworldly sublimity.  _Five-Six—_  Together they bear witness to the mystic glory of the cosmos, so much greater than this forsaken planet in which they find themselves so utterly alone. Daryl inches closer and at some point Beth is in his arms, tucked snuggly between his raised knees. She sighs deeply, like she's been holding this breath for days, and leans back into him, allowing her head to be pillowed by his chest. Daryl drops his chin to her head and breathes in this closeness, something they've been missing since they left that bedroom, missing as if they'd lost  _it_  too, surrendering some part of them back there with those misbegotten things. He misses her. Though she's hardly left his sight, he misses her. He misses the feel of her in his arms, and the way he feels when she's there. And with her there again, tucked within him, his mind drifts back to the vision of her laid out on that bed, beautiful, happy, and his. Safe, irresistible, soft, lovely, and his.  _Beth._ His chest tightens, and he swallows a knot clenching in his throat.

Though he knows it's him most likely and not her that's been keeping up the distance between them, it feels so good to have her back in his arms.  _What has he been doing?_ Another broken chunk of the heavens drops through the sky.

"... Do you ever think about it?" she asks dreamily. He can hear her dimples in her words.

"'Bout whut?"

"The sky... It's all that's left that's untouched." Beth blinks as she studies the night, "... It's still the same. Beautiful and blue. Sparkling and dark. The clouds, the stars, the moon, the heavens — all untouched. The birds still sing..."

"Never thought about it," he grunts.

Beth smiles, and leans her head back to his with a twist, kissing the scratchy underside of his neck. His heart swells. "Up there..." she continues, "looking down, the earth 's prob'ly still beautiful. Li _h_ ke nuthin' has changed..." She looks on, her long lashes batting as she dreams. "'C _ou_ rse," she snorts, "guess that's always been true — wars, n' famine. ... Guess ehv'rythin' looks beautiful if you're far e'nough away."

"Guess so," he mumbles into the top of her head. He doesn't tell her she's more beautiful the closer he gets to her, but his fingers interlace with hers, and he kisses the crest of her ear. The world fell apart all around them and left them in hell; the sky falls and it's nothing less than magical.

" _Make a wish_ ," she whispers.

"Huh?"

"You gotta make a wish on a shooting star."

"I can't wish no more, Beth. Hurts too much."

Held within her small hands he feels her bolstering squeeze. "That's why you gotta do it."

Daryl blinks, looking up into celestial unknown. "You do it for me."

There's no knowing if she does, or if she does what the wish is, but she draws his hand to her lips, and presses her quiet constant love there into his palm, where he can have it to hold onto.

Periodically another blazing meteor darts across the blackness, but they grow more and more infrequent, and Beth and Daryl grow tired. She pulls him down with her, onto their blanket, under the foil sheet, snugging herself up against him, drawing his arms around her, bending her knees over his. There they lay on their sides, tucked warmly within one another, for the first time in days. All sleep has been taken in shifts since their close call and since their alert line was taken. But today they found him shoes, and what's more they found some twine, and although as yet little hangs from it to sound the alarm, it is _something_ , and if Daryl  _had_  made a wish, it might very well have been to lie with her this close. Softly she kisses his muscled arm where her head lays pillowed on it. Daryl smells like sweat, and the forest, like campfire smoke and roasted cottontail. He smells safe. He smells like home. She breathes him in, and kisses him again.

Daryl's forearm crosses over her, slipping his hand down the front of her shirt. Softly, as his lips move against her neck and her jawline, he takes her breasts in his hand, holding her close to him. Beth's neck twists back to give his lips better access, and in warm arousal her body arcs and flexes. Daryl inhales sharply as as her back arches her hips press her back tightly into his. She almost cries, there in his arms, wrapped up in friendship, love, comfort and desire. She's missed him, his touch, his scent, his breath on her skin. She misses the sound of his voice and the feel of his chest rising and falling in time with hers. Daryl's mouth finds her ear and as he kisses her, sucking lightly on her lobe, feeling her fit body push up against him, his mind and untapped passions delve deeper into insatiable thoughts of her.

She's been so alone. Not actually, he's been there, but also not. For days Daryl's been somewhere removed, somewhere shut off away from her. This return to closeness, this return to  _them—_  she shudders from the intensity. She could weep, but her body seeks another release. Again he delights in the lissome pliancy of her body, relishing every responsive mewing stretch and arch it makes.

There's a pop at her jeans button and Daryl's hand slips into her pants, finding her between her legs. Beth holds her breath, the pleasure his hand produces in her elicits more gentle rolling in her hips, more pushing up against him, compounding his arousal. But it's his hands, strong and so familiar, touching her again, that brings the true reaction. Again her body shudders in deeply felt emotion, and Daryl holds her tighter, cradling her to him. He will love her, in all the ways she'll let him.

Beth's tongue and lips find his forearm and kiss him where the muscles tense. " _I love you_ ," she breathes. " _Don't disappear_."

Fervidly Daryl's teeth grip into the underside of her neck and savagely he pulls her closer, bracing his solid body against hers, his nether hand moving with more fervor between her legs. Beth's arm reaches behind them, clinging to the back of his neck, grasping him to her — Daryl's passion for her builds wildly. His scarred hand pulls out of her shirt, trailing down her torso, circling for a moment over the soft skin below her navel, flat and too thin, but _her._  His wet mouth bites feverishly at the soft flesh of her neck, and willing to prolong this deference of loving her no longer, he tugs single-mindedly at her jeans, wriggling her waistbands down off her hips, down to her mid-thighs, creamy, trim, and beautiful. Held tightly in his grasp Beth twists backwards to him, at long last catching his lips in hers while he scrambles with his buckle and fly, pulling at his pants so that he can get to her. Their tongues grapple as his arms find their way back to her, taking her pleasure into his hands, rolling, and pressing, and circling, and pulsing. Beth's body contracts in frustrated gratification, thrusting her hips back to find him and her portending satisfaction. When at last he's entered Beth gasps, and he presses hard, rocking his hips, biting down on her exposed collarbone, clutching her breasts  _—_  taking her back, his Beth, this girl that he loves, who he will keep close and keep safe as long as he can, and who he will love. Beth stifles a moan and clenches and bucks in an unexpected surge of pleasure, surrendering to him, taking his lead as he pushes her down on him with every thrust; holding her labored breath through the extended insuppressible eruption of sex and feeling, capitulation and reciprocation. The sensation of her, beautiful and young, frenzied and overcome, pushes Daryl over the edge and he succumbs willingly to his love, the girl who is everything he is not and everything he needs. Beth twists round to kiss him. " _Dar_ —" she would breathe his name if she could, but his wet lips are already on hers, tying her mouth up in long deep, satiated kisses.

 


	13. Chapter 13

In the morning they move on. Following the river, following the plan, keeping an eye out for all they may encounter. In the afternoon, after outrunning a pack of walkers after killing what they could, they walk more. Onwards, letting the journey be the destination until something more solid takes shape.

Beth's in the lead, favoring scaling stones and muddy embankments over the smoother grassy path just several steps off. She's bored, and the scrambling, while exacting extra exertion, is giving her something to do, something slightly less mindless than one level footstep after another. Besides which, they two no longer are obliged to choose their paths by terrain; they are barefoot no more. Each shod step marks a small victory in their ledger.

"How did you know?" she asks him, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled upon them.

"Know whut?"

"That we hadn't seen this river before. You said we were west of this before; how did you know?"

" _Beth,_ " Daryl admonishes.

She glances back over her shoulder, "What?"

"You been payin' attention at'all?" She doesn't like being reprimanded by him, nor does she enjoy being a source of disappointment to him. "Gotta keep your eyes open."

"I  _a_ m," she defends.

"Yeh? Fer whut?"

"For walkers. For tracks. For supplies. For food. For danger."

"In that order?" he prods, preferring 'danger' be foremost of what she's looking out for. "Girl, you gotta be looking for a lot more 'an that."

"What else is there?" she asks over her shoulder as she just barely keeps her balance skidding down a crumbling slope.

Daryl shakes his head, " _Jesus_." Beth has picked up a lot during their time on the road. She's a decent tracker — if the tracks are fresh, and not too small; she can skin and cook their game, she can kill a walker fast and efficient, she can make tough calls and quick, she can build fires, she can set up camp, she can move quickly and without noise, and loads more, but he's worried he hasn't taught her enough. And she needs to know everything. If they get separated, if something happens to him, Beth needs to know. He looks at her directly, "You know what direction we're headin'?"

Beth stops and looks up at the sky, she looks at the shadows, and she looks back at where they've come from. Daryl waits, impatiently, looking on as her face screws up in thought.  _She should know this faster._ "South-west."

"An' how do you know?" his follow-up is quick.

"The shadows. Sunrise — east; sunset — west."

His volley of questions keeps coming. "What time is it?" Beth looks up again— "No," he stops her. "Stop looking."

Beth thinks. "After noon. Maybe, three. About?"

"And what's different about this creek than the one we were on b'fore?"

Beth studies it. It doesn't look identical, but neither does it look notably different. The terrain has changed some, but that's true also as they have followed this same creek these many days; she thinks... Daryl cuts her off; she's taking too long.

"Is the creek bed muddy or rocky? Are there weeds in the water? What color is the soil? What kind of trees are these? Where is the moss growing?" He interrupts his steady barrage of questions to edify her on an important point— "Moss always grows to the north. Remember that. If it's not too close to the ground, and it it's not on or under a constant source of moisture, then moss grows on the north side." He looks at her, " _You gettin' me_ , Girl?  _Observant_  — that's what you've gotta be. There's a l _o_ t you gotta be payin' attention to: Where the sun is. Where the wind's comin' from. How many turns you make, and which direction. What kinda path or road you're on. What sounds you're hearin', and what sounds you're  _not_  but you should." He looks at her. " _Beth_ , you hearing me?" She nods. "This is important."

"I know." She nods again. "I get it."

"You can't forget these things."

"All right."

She said 'all right', she said she got it, but he doesn't let up. "You gotta know where you are, in relation to where you been." His emphatic implication being, she knows, that a person has to know where the danger is. She doesn't trouble with pointing out the fallacy in that. Nobody knows where the danger is, because honestly, it's everywhere, and it changes from moment to moment.  _But what would be the point in saying it?_ Daryl likes to feel he's got a handle on everything, as she also likes to feel he does, and they're just starting to recover from their last serious brush with danger, still all too real — felt in the emptiness of their stomachs and in their paucity of real weapons. There's no reason to bring it up. So she nods dutifuly, gives him a smile, and lets it pass. Everything he's saying is in love after all; he's not angry, he's trying to keep her safe, trying to prepare her, trying to keep his girl alive and keep them together.

Beth walks on, hitching the tattered pack she's carrying higher on her back as she does. Less than a quarter-mile on she breaks the silence again. "If you could have anything, right now, what would it be?"

"Huh?"

"We're walking along this path hoping to come across some abandoned camp sites, hoping to find things we need — what do you hope most to find?"

"I don't want to play this game."

"It's not a game, Daryl, it's a question. C _onversation._ We can't be silent always. So," she looks back at him with a half-goading Beth smile, "what would it be?"

Daryl strides several paces more before answering. "A tank."

Beth laughs, though he hadn't said it to amuse. "No you wouldn't," she says easily.

"Yeh? Why not?"

"'Cuz," Beth smiles, though her back's to him, "you're not like that." It's so plain to her.

"Like wh _u_ t?"

"Outdoors, Daryl. You need to be outside, not, shut up in some steel war machine. What would you do with a tank? That's not who you  _a_ re. That's n _o_ t how you survive. You couldn't get food with a tank," she points out. "Couldn't be secret or stealth."

"Wouldn't get messed with."

"I don't know," she considers. "Seems like a person with a tank is a person other people'd have their sights on."

"Whudd'ya want me to say?" he grunts. "I want my bow."

"I know." Beth walks. She shouldn't have brought it up. His answer should have been obvious. Beth can't even think of what she wants. She wants so many things, and has so little, the thought of asking for just one thing is daunting. What one thing could make a difference? What one thing could make a practical dent in all that they lack? She wants a feather bed, but it won't save their lives, and it couldn't travel with them. She'd like a car, or Daryl's old motorcycle, but that wouldn't get them fed. She'd like food, but that wouldn't make them safe, and they could never carry enough on their backs to keep them fed. She'd like shelter, but shelter's something you have till you lose it again; no matter that it seems so, she's coming to fear it is never really safe, and walls don't equate to food. She wants their family, but they're not just going to run into Rick and the others camped out waiting for them on the bank of this creek.  _Though how she wishes they would._  She wants people, a community, numbers, but trust does not come easily. Maybe Daryl was right last night: wishing is getting harder. But Beth does not let that stop her, and in the end, she too wishes for Daryl's crossbow. They can make the rest happen on their own.

Except for family. That is too big a thing for a wish. Finding the others will require more than passive wishing. Even with prayer, and active, living hope, it sometimes to her seems impossible. (But those thoughts she keeps to herself.)

"Hold up," he grunts, "gotta take a piss." And Beth stops and waits, looking into the sky, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun while Daryl leans one hand against the trunk of a tree and relieves himself.

Beth wipes her brow with her sleeve, and occupies herself trying to see if she can spot any fish beneath the ripples where the creek runs fast and deep over rocks. Still looking, absently Beth touches her head where her hair once was; not finding it gives her pause, and just for a second her fingers stretch further to be sure. But it is all gone, she's just not yet adjusted to it not being there.

Daryl winces, having caught all this in his periphery vision. "Prob'ly a liability," he mutters, turning back to her, "as it turns out." She looks at him, for some indication of his meaning, not realizing he'd been watching her, and Daryl flicks at the back of his head where a long blonde ponytail would've been if he were her. "Yer hair. Maybe nothin' but a target." Daryl bites at his thumbnail absently as he considers the world as it stands. "Seems like nothing good comes of being a pretty girl in this world. M _a_ ggie. The girls Randal's group come across. Whoever was being held in those storage garages. It isn't safe. Not out here on the road for sure. The world's different."

Beth looks at him in open earnestness, "Different how?"

Daryl looks and smirks, and answers like truer words have never been spoken: "World used'ta fall all over itself for a pretty girl." He looks at her, "You were in high school; don't pretend you don't know."

"I think it's pretty silly you're talking about high school. And," she adds as they start up their walking again, "you don't know exactly what you're about." Daryl's eyebrows cock at her and she expounds. "Daryl, I don't mean to be callous, but, it's not like the world's ever been especially safe for women. 1 in 4 girls 're victims of assault in college."

Never having heard anything like that, and especially now that his view of college girls has changed somewhat dramatically since knowing the Greene sisters, Daryl's face wrenches in response. "N _a_ w." His head shakes imperceptibly. "Can't be true."

"Could be more," she says walking on, "that's just what goes reported."

" _Jesus_." He paces angrily. "Whut'ch y'all payin' all that m _o_ ney f _o_ r?" But there's no use getting enraged about it now, that world's gone, and he shakes his head and lets his indignation fade. His eyes drop solemnly; Daryl can't explain it, because Beth's in no more danger now than she was a second earlier, but he wants to reach out and pull her to him, to feel her against his chest with his lips buried in what's left of her hair. But he doesn't move. He lets her be.

"Anyway," she says, " _you're_  the target between us, Daryl Dixon. You're strong, you act fast, and you're not afraid. You're a threat to every group we meet.  _You're_ the target, Daryl, not me."

Daryl hates this conversation. He hates this world. He hates that Beth is so pragmatic and naïve at the same time about something that's keeping him up nights.  _With only two of them what chance is there for long-term survival?_ He doesn't trust anyone but her, no one but her and their absent family, but they need numbers. But if he can't trust others it's less dangerous to stay on their own. Daryl trusts who stands with them; right now that's only Beth. Anyone opposite them is opposition, a threat till neutralized, and a problem to be solved. No one can make it on their own, but maybe he and Beth can make it as a pair. Maybe they can make it till they find a group, someone worth their trust. What haunts him is another standoff, one they won't be able to walk away from. He'll die to protect her, but the catch there is his death will do anything but protect her _. How does it not end with him leaving her alone, vulnerable and exposed?_

What he wishes for is a private world of them two, where they are safe, where it can always be like it was between them last night: Passionately entwined, wrapped up in the heat of one another, quiet, and at peace, the other's partner, the other's guide, happy, and fulfilled. Nothing used to scare him, he could battle the world without much weighing him down, but loving Beth has given him something he can lose — something enduring, but so defenseless against outside forces.

Daryl looks at her: strong, lean, fair, resilient, walking on, mile after mile, keeping a steady pace, her pretty blue eyes, in that pitilessly close-shorn head, fixed with hope on the bleak unknown before them, telling herself she's not a target, telling herself a crossbow or a wish will make the difference for them. Daryl wants her prepared, but he wants her  _Beth_. He doesn't want to break her down in anticipation that someone else will. He chooses not to contradict her. He looks away, and sniffs, to break the heaviness of the words that have been spoken.

"Guess we better get ourselves off the road," he says, trying for a lighter air. "The both of us."

Beth looks at him plainly. "I'm going where you're going." Her slight smile sparkles in the aftermath, and it strikes him so, something in him almost tears up, but Daryl shrugs it off and grabs at the strap on her shoulder and lovingly pushes her ahead of him as they pick up their pace.

Somewhere above them a cardinal calls, answered by another. The tree branches rustle in the wind.

Behind her as he walks Daryl stops and stoops to pick up something he's spotted caught between the rocks. He carries it with him some paces, and as he catches up with her, he holds her still with a quick grab to her wrist, and takes the feather, delicate and blue, tucking it gently behind her ear.

His creased eyes squint at her. Beth's long girlish hair is gone, but she is unchanged. Then he bites his lip and strides on. Somehow the incident with the bandits had put them at odds, but they're finding their way back, step by step.

Beth smiles, her dimples deepening, then walks on, following where Daryl leads.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to take a moment to say I'm so appreciative of all you readers and your kind/encouraging words. I've been active in the MSCL fandom a little more than half my life (ouch! that's a scary truth!) and venturing into a new site (AoOO) and posting for a new fandom is always so nerve-wracking, unsure of the reception you'll receive, but I have found this site and its users to be very sweet and welcoming to each other, which makes such a difference and makes being here such a pleasure. :) Thank you!

"What'chya doin'?" Daryl throws a sharp glance over his shoulder at her as he tends the flames of their evening fire and turns over the skunk they'll soon be eating.

From behind him where Beth has seated herself on a rock, she's climbed her bare feet to his shirt back, under his open leather cut, padding them up and down in place, pressing him lightly, quietly and comfortably massaging his muscles as best she can with her small squarish toes. He looks back at her again but she just shrugs and smiles lazily at him. "Nuthin'."

Daryl shakes his head with a stifled smile muttering, "Strange."

"What was that?" she prompts once his head's turned back towards their roasting repast. But she'd heard.

"You're strange, Girl. 's whut I said."

Of course she'd heard. Cut off from the world except for the sounds of the wind and the crickets and cicadas and the birds and the gopher frogs and the running of water and the rustle and scurry of small four-legged creatures and the shuffle and groaning of dead moving walkers, his voice, deep and raspy and gravely and complex, stands out to her so distinctly in the grey quiet noises of the wilderness. She hears every word he says. She would now if there were dozens, or hundreds of people around, so accustomed and attuned her body has grown to his. She only makes him repeat himself because it makes her smile, and because when his words are few they must be made to last. Like Beth can now read the signs of the forest she can also decipher his meaning in his grumblings. Telling her she's strange is Daryl for something closer to: 'The ways in which you are different from me, and take me by surprise are precious to me. Do not change from who you are.'

Such words would never actually emerge from his drawn mouth, but they do from his lips in the moments when softly he kisses her face — her temples and her eyelids and her forehead; likewise they do from his fingertips when he allows himself the luxury to take her slowly in his hands. Words, she's found, mean less and less in a world governed so completely, in all respects, by action. In everything he does Daryl Dixon tells her he will stay with her, and he will love her, for as long as he is able. A truth she knows so well it may be carved into the grain of her bones, and into her tendons and the fibers of her muscles.

"Well," she says lightly, edging her raw feet toward his shoulders, "you're stuck with me."

Daryl reaches behind him and takes hold her toes with one hand. "You said it. Stuck."

Beth smiles, though he cannot see it, then tugs back her foot and continues to prod and press absently against his back, watching him tend the fire and the meat he's cooking over it. It had been a lucky kill. Daryl flung the knife through the air, spinning with precision, striking the animal right in its chest. Though they may smell like their meal for a couple of days, they will not go hungry. They may even have to let some of it spoil if they can't eat it fast enough, a unique and disheartening proposition.

She's been sitting there, watching him from behind, studying the back of that greasy, sweaty, mangy head she knows so well, and loves so dearly, and would recognize anywhere. She's been thinking, while their dinner roasts over the fire, crackling as the flames jump and lick the meat, that by all odds they should be dead, or close to it. But they are not. He is cooking a meal they both will gratefully soon eat. A meal of game caught without his Busse hunting knife, without his crossbow, or the advantages of snares or firearms. With nothing they have survived. From nothing they have found reasons for persevering. They have found themselves. They have found each other. Though the outside world relentlessly finds ways to crush and bear down on them, the have not been trampled. Beth never knew she had such resiliency within her.

She watches him, thinking about Daryl Dixon, her may-be only living family, and all his complexities and all she knows of him and can rely on him for, and all she'll probably never know of him, all the things he'll never let her hear. Loving him in her old life would have been unthinkable. Loving him when she met him would have been absurd. Loving him in the prison would have been complicated, and poorly received, and difficult to realize. But loving him in the woods, on the run, had come easily, once they'd started talking; once they burned down everything but the selves they are surviving as, the selves they're keeping alive and forward-looking on the road. It was something that came naturally, once they discovered themselves open to it. It — this kindred connection — is one thing they have going for them, even when all else is lost. So as she sits there, thinking on him, and all he means to her, she bends her knees further some, putting just the smallest fraction more of pressure on his back through the naked soles of her feet, watching the dirty wings of his cut lift and rise above her feet.

Those wings... Daryl isn't an angel. He may be plagued by demons and haunted by his better angels, but what she sees is a man, her friend, and her companion — her comrade and her love. And if he's been on the run from the things in his past he needs to stop, because they're on this road together, and their enemies need to be the same and their causes do as well. Daryl makes her stronger, helping her to shed the weakest, most broken parts of her.

She can do the same for him.

In time she speaks, giving voice to her thoughts, "You don't have to hide them." She's said it as lightly as she might say anything.

"Hide whut?" he grunts, poking at the meat with the knife, realizing he'll have to cut it into still smaller parts if it's to cook evenly.

Once more her feet dance innocuously against his back. "You know."

Daryl stiffens.

Had she seen them? They'd been on the road together for weeks now. Longer. They've been in all states of undress in that time, and being on the road as a pair renders modesty all but nonexistent, but still, it's second nature to him to hide his back when he is able; he wouldn't have thought she'd have seen, not really. Even when he made love to her. Had he slipped? How long ago? How many times?

Daryl leans forward, just enough to put an inch or so of space between her toes and him. Just enough distance to signal to her she's treading on a path she should not.

"I haven't seen them," she answers in response to the unasked question. She's making an effort in this exchange not to get too earnest, he's skittish already as it is. But she's started to take notice of the effort he makes to keep this old truth of his from her, and she's decided she might try to lift at least this burden from him.

He'd rather say nothing about it — rather drop it all together, rather go on pretending (if that's what she's been doing up till now): There's nothing to have seen. But her words hang heavy in the air, and if he lets them linger any longer they'll have too much weight. "Whut're ya on about?" he barks.

Changed in these years and in these months though he has, Daryl still has his triggers, and the marks of his past are one, provoking from him a tone of voice he does not in practice use with her, but Beth looks past his surliness, a thing easy enough for a person to do once Daryl's let them in. "I can feel them, you know. Under your shirt, when—" But she doesn't have to finish, he takes her meaning. When he was feeling her, her perfect young body, beautiful and alive and unmarred, she was feeling those. Ugly risen welts that bear the witness of his upbringing.

His default is to bristle. His go-to is to buck and bluster, to regress and retreat or else to confront and intimidate. But really, how long under these conditions had he thought he could keep it up without her seeing? Without her knowing? He has a choice: to rage or to shut down, or to let it go. He can't go mute on her; he's tried it, it doesn't work. And she doesn't deserve it. Yelling at her serves no purpose, she's all he has. Yelling wouldn't change anything, and anyway he isn't angry, not at her.

Daryl speaks no words. And that's all right with her; Beth hadn't said something to get him to speak in return. She's not after a story. All those stories burned down in that dilapidated past-haunted still. She'd only said it to put him at ease, but there in front of her, hunched over the fire, Daryl is not at ease. These marks, these marks he's carried with him for years...

He can't be rid of them.

The world ends, and they're still there, hounding him, getting between him and other people, like they always had done. He covered them with tattoos, he covered them with clothing and his winged cut; he covered them with evasive maneuvers and aggressive posturing. But these scars cut deeper than his flesh and it's that that's hard to cover. Hard to break fully free from.

"I'm not asking you to show me." She never mentions that of course he has scars on his back — they've always been visible on his shoulder blades, creeping out from his ubiquitous cut-off shirts. She does wonder though, if maybe he's right, and the full view of it, the full measure of past hurts in physical shape will be too much to be confronted with, worse than what she's expected. "That's not why I said something." Beth drums her fingers lightly on her knees as she watches him react through the silent tensing of his muscles. "All I'hm sayin' is —" she takes a moment "— if you trouble to keep them hidden — or," she edits herself, conscious not to ascribe intentions that are not his own, "out of sight— You don't have to," she says plainly. "I don't care."

Daryl, unable to manage anything but, glares back at her with a sharp sounding snort, "Real nice." For sheer lack of experience or knowing in what other direction to direct himself, Daryl nears closer to picking a fight with her, but Beth's not letting herself get drawn in; they had had a good day, after a beautiful night, they're trying to get back on track, and she's trying to get closer. And he should know better than to take her meaning as disengaged apathy. So instead, Beth gives him another light prodding with her foot.

"Didn't mean it like that."

"Great," he grunts. "Now c'n we drop it?"

"Dropped."

It's too long now to know for sure why he keeps this hidden. Hidden mostly from the people he suspects would care. Shame? Self preservation? Deflection? It's done on instinct now, rote mechanics of hiding — practiced, seasoned detachment. Muscle memory and a well guarded heart both are difficult to break.

The night passes. They eat their dinner. They talk some. They sit close; the nights are growing colder day by day. Had Beth brought this up a week ago, or more, Daryl's bristled back might not have fully gone down the rest of the night; he'd be on edge, withdrawn, brooding and standoffish. The quiet affection he normally shows her would be noticeably absent, and though they would still sleep beside one another, as not doing so would be silly, and would make too much of a thing he'd be trying to forget ever took place, he wouldn't kiss her, or take her in his arms, and the thought of sleeping with her would not cross his mind.

But it is not a week or more ago. A lot has transpired in the interval of then and this night. He'd only just got Beth back in his arms the night before, he won't shut her out again so quickly. Shutting down would be easier, it would be familiar, but it would be the wrong thing to do. She hadn't been wrong, Beth, when she'd said things like this, the ugliness of the old life, needed to be put away.

If he let the scars of childhood, of loss, and terror, and disappointment and abandonment come between him and her, that'd put him right back where he'd started, no better off than when he'd first joined the group outside of Atlanta, following Merle, looking out for number one. There would be no 'new' life and 'old'. That's not who he is now, in the darkness with her in the sliver of light from the new breaking moon. That's not who he's been in a long time. Like Beth said, he's got to stay who he is not who he was. The past is not everything. And these days, it seems more like nothing. As a child, Daryl lost out on a mother, a father, an older brother, and his innocence. Grown, in these past three years after the world's turn, he's lost that same brother, and an entire assembled family. The scars of years gone by are quickly being overshadowed by bigger, more weighty losses. Sophia. Dale. Lori. T-Dog. Andrea. Merle, who was maybe at his best just before he died. Hershel. All the many many others. That pain, those losses, cut deeper than his daddy's belts and canes. They weigh heavier upon him.

Of all those losses... She's all that he has left. Why would he shut her out?

So instead, in opposition to all his years have trained him for, he lets her in. Daryl tugs on Beth where she lies beside him beneath their foil blanket, and pulls her onto him. "Love you," he utters, stroking her cheek lightly with his calloused thumb, looking into her dirty youthful face. "Pretty girl."

Beth doesn't hesitate, her blue eyes shut and she kisses him. With a heart that is honest and open and forthright. And he lets her make love to him, like he hasn't allowed her to before. And when she takes him in her mouth, fumbling a little as she's unpracticed, she grips his hand so tightly in union, and he holds on to her, and what it is they're trying to build, and lets the rest of it fall away to settle in the ashes of that forgotten wasted house and the old memories it harbored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, summer's ending and my writing time is about to disappear big time, so unfortunately the frequency of my posts is about to slow way down :( but please stick with me as the story will continue and I do have it mapped for where it is heading. xo


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is the start to the next phase of the story I wasn't/am not too sure on.  
> [You'll note a use of the word "whale"; I debated for a long time between the nonstandard, now more common spelling of 'wail' but from the reading I did, "whale", I believe, would be the correct spelling (stemming from, I believe, whalers beating/lancing their prey).] okay... [THANK YOU!!!! for sticking with this story – I apologize for the long absence in updates (at least it wasn’t 6+ months!) but it’s so easy for me to get sucked into a fanfiction writing vortex, and with the demands of work and grad classes, I can’t walk that line. This post is marking the occasion that I’m seeing Emily Kinney perform tonight!]

While Daryl packs their camp Beth takes her knife, as well as several of the carefully selected leaves she carries with her, and steps into the trees for a moment of privacy, remaining alert to her surroundings and being careful not to venture too far. Unzipping and tugging down her jeans Beth squats and looks up into the patches of blue sky through the leaves overhead, studying the late morning sunlight twinkling down in a haze through the shifting shadows and breeze-rustled branches. It's a later start they're getting this morning, very. Normally they'd have been walking for hours by now, but this morning it wasn't in them. Their bedroll had been somehow more comfortable this morning, and the running of the water in the creek was especially tranquil, and the morning air was not too cool to prompt them to immediacy, and as they still had food from the night before they took the morning off. They sat around, they sharpened their blades, they mended the laces of their boots where they were too worn through; they talked, they made love, they killed a stray walker.

Somewhere in the foliage above a woodpecker calls, whip-poors, and hammers.

Behind her in the trees there's a snap, and a crunching in the fallen branches and leaves on the wooded ground. Beth's head snaps in the direction of the sound, the footsteps she hears are not Daryl's — too heavy, and from the wrong direction. They're too deliberate and quick to be walkers'. Suddenly from the shadows appear two boys, by their looks near her age, standing there dumfounded, just as surprised to see her as she is to see them. All three freeze.

"It's a girl," the taller leaner one says.

"Ye- _ah_."

Her heart and breath stop cold; eyes fixed on the intruders, Beth refastens her pants with expediency as they step towards her; instantly Beth moves for her knife but her attempt to scream for Daryl is choked off, they're on her fast, a hand over her mouth muffling her cries, pulling her up, fists wrapping tightly around the wrist of her right hand wielding the knife. Arms around her waist and thighs, wherever they can get a quick and solid grip on her, they drag her, carrying her off with haste, back into the thick of the woods and the direction from which they'd come.

Beth flails and kicks, thrashes and fights but together they've got a fast hold on her. She bites at the hand stifling her but she can't get at enough of it to make much of an impact. Beth Greene's body is screaming, every nerve and cell in her raging for escape, rioting with feral fight. Every second she's not screaming is distance put between her and Daryl. Finally their running and her violent thrashing and the moisture from her biting mouth cause the hand to slip some and Beth cries out.

_"DARYYYL!_ "

The boys keep moving through the trees with her, "Shut her up!" one says in a panicked voice.

"What'd she say?" the other asks.

"Dunno." They're getting winded from the effort of dragging her and fighting off her fierce battling.

"Sound like a name?" They look at each other and pause in their progress, still holding on to her.

Suddenly under fierce impact all three figures are knocked to the ground as Daryl charges through the trees barreling into them. Beth gets knocked free from their grips but remains tangled up with the smaller of them, who's too stunned to move off her, while Daryl whales on the one closest to him, pulling off the knife the kid had been carrying and chucking it out of reach. Relentlessly Daryl grabs him up by the chest of his shirt and brutally pummels his face over and over and over again, with a ferocity Beth's not seen in him. The other pulls free from the tangle and throws himself on Daryl to pull him off but it has little effect on Daryl's blind rage and then the smaller boy's off all together, frozen standing stark still under the threat of Beth's knife she's now holding at his throat.

"Wait!  _Wait!_ " the kid at knifepoint yells. Daryl doesn't flinch, his ruthless blows and kicks keep coming. "We weren't taking her!" he yells desperately. " _I swear_!" The kid under Daryl's fury is choking and coughing, his face already bloody pulp. "You're  _killing_  him!  _Pe-ter_!" His young voice breaks in alarm as he tries desperately to get at his friend but Beth's panic keeps her hand at his throat and her blade at the ready.

Daryl lands one more heavy blow on his target then turns, his fists bloody and shredded, his chest heaving in passion and his face red and hard with aggravated unbridled vengeance:  _They are NOT going through this again._ Seeing Beth with the knife at the kid's throat Daryl in one motion yanks out his own and holding it in replacement of hers in tight position against the straining jugular, pushes Beth back from the violence, back from her first act of close aggression against a living human being. He wants her strong, he wants her quick to act, he wants her brave and full of fight, but he'll keep her innocent of letting living blood while he can; he grips their captive tightly round the neck with his densely muscled left arm, mercilessly thrusting him back against a tree, jabbing the freshly sharpened blade ever closer to the unbearded flesh of this boy less than half his age and half his mass.

" _Who are you?!_ " he roars. Daryl pats the kid down and pulls off him a blade, and a handgun, throwing them at Beth's feet.

"We weren't taking her!" the standing one shouts. "We thought she was alone!" he gets out, despite the blade held so close it's nicking at his flushed and sweating skin.

"Shut up!" Daryl seethes, pulling him up and slamming his head back hard against the tree trunk. " _Who are you?!_ "

The kid is at a loss, his head is throbbing, his friend is struggling to breathe in short sharp wheezy gasps, and it's been too long now — there's no way anymore to answer who he is.  _Who are any of them?_  "I'm, we're no one," he stammers.

Daryl draws back his bloodied fist, readying to connect. "Daryl," Beth interjects with grave evenness. "Let him talk."

His sharp eyes flash round on her, " _What?_ "

"Give him time to explain," she appeals dryly, still standing with her knife at the ready and in her belt the blade Daryl had pulled off the crumpled figure at her feet.

"Give 'im time to  _lie_ 's whut it would be," Daryl snarls. "Give 'im time till more of 'em show  _u_ p."

The kid nods over the sound of his companion wheezing and gasping for breath where he still lays crumpled on the ground. "There  _a_ re more of us." Daryl moves to kill him right then "— But we're not going to hurt you!" he adds. "We saw her — al _o_ ne — she looked afr _aid_. We took her with us — we didn't mean anything!"

Daryl glares at Beth as if to say ' _you asked for these lies_.'

"I was screaming," she lays against her would-be captor. "You covered my mouth. I was fighting you off. You held me down." Daryl's eyes narrow further in vicious hatred.

The kid sputters and stammers in a panic to be heard, "We thought you were alone; we thought you were scared."

"You gagged my mouth," she charges.

"Screaming gets their attention," he defends. "Draws 'em in." Again his voice cracks, "We didn't know." He looks in genuine desperation from Beth to Daryl to his fading friend Peter, back to Daryl and Beth. "Girl out on her own? We thought she was afraid. We th _ought_  we were saving her." Daryl studies this kid's eyes, his demeanor, and slackens off by a fraction. "We're not like that," the kid says in his own defense now that the knife isn't quite as threatening.

"Ev'rybody who says they're not like that,  _is_  like that," Daryl spits.

"I  _swear_ ," the kid says, his voice breaking once more. " _We're_  not. We stick to ourselves; we don't mess with other groups. We lay low."

" _Yeah_?" Daryl challenges. "You call snatching up g _ir_ ls 'gainst their w _i_ ll 'layin' l _o_ w'? You call that 'not mixin' with other gr _ou_ ps'?"

The boy shakes his head with grave vehemence, "It was a misunderstanding."

Daryl looks him over once more then sufficiently convinced, at least for the moment, shoves him back, hard, so that the kid bounces off the tree trunk and stumbles, "Misunderstandings git you killed."

The kid finds his footing then rushes to his friend; the boy Peter's still heaving and struggling on the ground, nearing unconsciousness. "Pete. Pete? Can you hear me? You all right?" Watching him attend to his friend, Daryl sees how young he looks as he does, though he must be something closer to eighteen or nineteen.

For a brief moment Beth and Daryl stay back at a distance as their adrenaline slows and their chests heave a little less, remaining ever watchful of the two strangers. Daryl keeps his eyes trained on the woods, watching for what will come at them next. Then he's tugging Beth by her upper arm and leading her at a fast pace, with the boys' seized weapons in tow, through the trees back to their camp. He might have bought the story these guys are relatively harmless — the one who had been talking had had truth in his eyes — but to mix with others is to invite complications. He's getting Beth, their gear, and himself out of there now, putting a hell of a lot of distance between them and those kids they're leaving behind, bloody and weaponless. As she's being pulled Beth looks once behind her at the figures, then without Daryl having to prompt her she turns away and fleetly shifts with him through the woods to their modest camp, keeping her focus on what she must.

Behind her, mixed with the rustlings and chirping of the forest sounds, Beth can hear the boy crying over his battered friend, but she keeps her eyes fixed on Daryl, and briskly pulls on her pack and helps gather the few scattered items Daryl'd let fly from his hands when he'd heard her cry.

Without overture Daryl breaks from his rote immediacy and is cradling her head by the back of her neck. "You okay?"

"Mm,hm."

Daryl nods, and shoulders his pack. "You did good."

"Daryl—" She wants to ask him if they'd played that wrong.  _Are they too quick to see enemies?_ She knows Daryl's answer already: ' _Seein' enemies is what keeps ya alive_.' She knows too it wasn't more than five minutes ago she'd thought all was lost for her — she was being taken, separated from Daryl, alone in the overpowering grasp of masculine hands, and the intense resonance of that fear is still electric within her,  _but—_  those boys they're leaving behind aren't much bigger than Carl. Those adolescent cracks in the one's voice weren't missed on her. Daryl had believed their story, otherwise the other wouldn't still be standing, and now one's left all but unconscious and both are left without weapons.

There may be a group out there waiting for these two — even looking — but there may not be. It's an easy enough lie to tell when you're outnumbered or overpowered. Beth's feet and eyes follow Daryl's, keeping his pace as they head east double-time, but her mind lingers with those two…

And then they're stopped. Their path cut off by a herd, maybe two dozen, moving through. Daryl's wrist flexes behind him in his signal to Beth to be still. She's already turned round, retracing their steps in silence when he gives the signal to retreat.

As they move, again Beth hears the boy they left, struggling in a panic to revive his friend. Her head wants to turn slightly in their direction, but she keeps apace with Daryl, and trains her focus on what matters: Daryl and she, and the path they've been forging, and getting out of there alive. They keep moving. Moving is survival, no matter the threat, no matter what is being left behind.

Through the woods the shuffle and dragging of close by walkers sounds nearer. Daryl's pace quickens, never noting that Beth is looking down at her belt, and at the confiscated weapons she's carrying. Behind her sounds the scrambling and frantic desperation of the one trying to revive or lift his friend and to get out of the path of the roaming walkers, evidently close now on their heels. ' _He doesn't leave him,'_ she notes to herself, when doing so would be the surest path to survival. Branches snap, Beth hears grunts, and cries, and the unmistakable groaning and gnashing of the dead. The math calculates itself — two bodies, only one of which mobile, no weapons, and advancing walkers: those boys, at least one, won't survive. She acts before she thinks it through, acts before Daryl can stop her, and before she questions the wisdom of saving someone who, misunderstanding or no, had just held her against her will.

Beth bursts through the brush with her blade already arched and drives it down into the nearest rotting skull as she sees the one kid standing over the limp wheezing body of his friend, trying to jam a broken-off shrub branch through the decaying eye socket of another attacker. Beth makes her kill but another walker falls onto her, grasping at and tearing at her pack, scratching ever closer to her; Beth struggles to get the angle of her knife right for impact when the weight is pulled off her and Daryl's slamming the thing against a tree and bashing its head in with his pipe. Beth steps in behind the walker on the stranger and pierces up through the back of its neck into its brain. The thing falls limp against her blade and she tugs and jerks it out as the corpse hangs heavy from it; the guy she saved looks at her, stunned, breathless. "Thanks," he coughs. Behind them Daryl's a whirl of motion, kicking back the remaining advancing corpses, mightily swinging one back into the other, falling down atop them and plunging his knife at full force into first one then the other's skulls. When he's back on his feet, his hands dark with the black goopy blood and still breathing heavily, he grabs Beth roughly by the back of her pack and pulls her close, "You  _crazy_?" he barks. Beth doesn't get the chance to answer, the herd is heading towards them; he shakes her into action and pushes her ahead of him, " _Move!_ " Beth stumbles forward into a run and Daryl behind her steps over the kid's body he'd impaled to the ground and keeps going.

The kid who by Beth's intervention had been temporarily granted a stay of death is again left to his own defenses — left with a stick, a defenseless companion drifting in and out of consciousness, and a standing target for the advancing herd.

The boy stoops and lifts his friend but the battered Peter is limp and cannot support his own weight, surely Daryl's booted kicks did some damage; the other struggles to support him but stumbles. The herd draws nearer. The boy scrambles again, unwilling to leave his friend, unable to do more than drag him, and at a speed that will surely get them quickly overrun. He tries again, and just as they falter, Beth is there — faster than Daryl can note her absence and stop her — ducking in and tucking under the battered one's other arm for support. She does not fully rise though, does not help them off the ground until the words are spoken: "If you try anything — if your group tries anything—" Beth holds his eye line to ensure he's listening "—he—" her glance flashes toward Daryl for emphasis "—will kill you." She says it flatly, without passion, so assured of this is she it doesn't need to come out as a threat. "He won't hesitate. And—" her bright girlish eyes fix on his with meaning "—I won't either." And there's no doubt she means it, though Daryl himself is shocked to hear it from her. Then she's helping them both to rise to their feet and clear out.

The one called Peter's eyes are nearly swollen shut but the other one looks at her, her actions entirely unexpected and unprecedented. He nods, accepting the help, and they step forward, the injured boy held up equally by Beth and the other, and they move, over brush and branch at the fastest pace they can, toward Daryl who'd backtracked when he'd discovered Beth was no longer with him.

Huffing from labored breath, angry as hell, and still removed by a distance of several feet, Daryl watches on in exasperated rage, like his mind can't work this fast to keep up with all the changes, but after two more labored paces Daryl stalks forward, pushes Beth out of the way, and takes her place, bearing most of the weight of the prostrated youth on his own broad shoulders, and then they're moving, fast, out of the path of the walkers, into the further cover of the trees.

After some time, and the threat of immediate danger has been, at least for the time, outpaced, the two of them — Daryl and the kid — stop, mute and confounded by this development, and look at one another; but there's naught to do but walk on. Which they do, trudging steadily, keeping ahead — they hope — of ambush.

"Michael," the one speaks as they traverse the rocky, rooted underbrush. He indicates his inert bloodied friend, "Peter."

The echoing quiet of the woods is broken when she — who Daryl's insisting walk ahead of them, ever in his eye line — answers. "Beth," she speaks softly. "This is Daryl." Daryl grunts.

They travel on. Presumably in the direction of these boys' camp. Presumably not into a trap. Or danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter has been revised from it’s original version – hopefully the added paragraphs and immediate threat of walkers maybe lends a little more likelihood that Beth might help these two, despite what she has been through… I may yet go back and revise this still more as I agree this transition to something close to begrudging trust is probably too quick and unfounded... (It's the best I've got right now, I think I’m anxious to move ahead... but like I'd said, this whole next segment of chapters I'm not feeling quite solid on...)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! BIG 'Thank You's to all the consistent readers, those of you who have stuck with this story over this very long break, and especially enormous 'THANK YOUs' to the reviewers! It really helps to continue the writing to hear from readers on what works / stands out (even in the times when I know I'm disappointing reader's wishes, i.e. not letting D and B track down the gang that robbed them)!
> 
> Please note: I went back and revised/expanded the last chapter maybe by a third. The basic story is the same, but hopefully I did a better job at addressing Beth's choice to help these guys.
> 
> Okay, here's the next mini installment.

"We wouldn't just take someone." The silence of their steady footsteps breaks with these words.

They've been walking for near half an hour now, carrying the one, following where the other leads, their progress impeded by the load being born and the quick pace they'd been keeping. It is a tenuous trust established between them  _—_  one half of one party had been taken against their will, one half of the other had been mercilessly beaten.

"' _Someone_ '?" Daryl grunts bitterly. He's still on edge, not wholly convinced these two strangers should be trusted, or that he and Beth should be helping them, following where this Michael leads. "Young pretty girl on 'er own ain't any 'someone'." Ahead Beth walks on, never faltering in her pace, despite the exchange and implications being made behind her. She knows what Daryl fears. She's cognizant of the dangers he keeps referencing are out there lying in wait for her, but all she can do is live with it. And be smart. Beth can't cower every time the savage aggression of men rears its head. She would not be Hershel Greene's daughter if she did. Beth walks on, keeping several paces ahead, making, when directed to, slight adjustments to the course she's blindly treading.

With large intent eyes, not unlike Beth's, Michael looks at Daryl over the drooping bloodied head of his friend, "That's not us." His delivery is unquestionably earnest.  


Daryl grimaces, but he keeps walking. He can't know what this is, who these two are, where they are heading, or what, or whom they will find when they arrive; but whoever these two are, it's for certain circumstances could be much worse right now if they had been someone else. Beth could be dead. Or gone. He doesn't know if they should be helping these strangers, if they should be walking towards their camp as they now are instead of clearing out and hightailing it in the opposite direction.  _Are they walking into an ambush? Would they have been pursued if they had ran?_

Nursing his suspicion, Daryl listens as in pieces as they walk the kid — the one who's able to speak, tells some of his story. He recounts briefly the story every still-living person has in universal variance: The initial escape — the move from home and the familiar to a life in purgatory as a refugee of the road. He touches on broad strokes, but never paints the picture. The gist is he no longer has a family. And he's been in these woods a long time. This 'Michael' does not feel especially dangerous, and seems to be telling the truth — all the regular tells point to it — and Beth has this longing to believe.

But there are liars who have themselves so convinced, the lies they tell are their truths. And Daryl is wary of falling in.

It may turn out these guys are harmless. Could be they may even be assets. Tyreese, Sasha, Michonne, they had all been strangers at one point. Even Beth, and Maggie, and Hershel. Even Rick.  _Is he really never going to trust no one again? No one but Beth? Is he going to keep it just her and him always?_  They need numbers. Numbers help. No one can make it on their own. Daryl knows having numbers again, might, at some point, be worth the risk.  _But is it now? Is it with these would-be kidnappers?_

Daryl eyes these guys. He replays the story he was told: So much about this new world is act-first-talk-later,  _but if he had come across someone in the woods, seemingly alone, presumably scared, would he have grabbed them up without a word? Spirited them away like these two had tried with Beth?_

_No._  Not with someone older than a child. Not in the absence of immediate threat from walkers. He wouldn't. But these two did.  _Should that be telling him something?_

Uncertainty hounds his steps.  _Has survival by suspicion and living so long on edge made him unable to recognize good intentions when confronted? Or is her unextinguished desire to find community pushing him to trust when he should not?_

Daryl doesn't over think it; he gets out of his head and keeps his eyes and ears open, and his senses honed. Andrea trusted the Governor, and it got her killed. She took a risk making choices trusting things could all work out; it couldn't have turned out worse.  _He'd_  trusted the Governor had disappeared. He'd believed he'd finally get more time with Merle. He'd believed they'd make the prison work, that they could have some kind of life there, that the kids 'd be okay and they would stay together as a group, he and Rick and Glenn and all the others. None of them had wanted to believe the Governor was as dangerous as he was; that day at the fences, Daryl'd told Carl Rick had it handled. And then the sword struck Hershel's neck, hacking into him, like no living man deserved, least of all Hershel Greene.

Daryl clears his throat. He can't think too long on Hershel. Neither can he on Merle, nor on the group, or on any whom they've lost. Thinking on things gone by sets him on edge, his fists clench, his jaw strains.

He tries at the calculations:  _Is saving these two lives, which certainly he and Beth had, enough to counter-balance the fact he'd beaten one of them to nothing, if indeed they do have more people waiting for them? Who's coming out on top in this equation?_  The arithmetic of survival is tenebrous; there are too many x-factors. Survival — and more than that,  _trust_  — is incalculable, and unquantifiable. What  _is_  calculable is the death count. Bodies can be counted, but not losses, they're bigger, and more immeasurable. He wants to get away from this, grab Beth and get the hell out. He'll risk the possibility they'd be turning their backs on their first break since the prison's fall, because if they can't be sure, if suspicion is clouding his instinct, it's best to play it safe, and keep it just the two of them. But in his head he hears Beth's voice telling him there are still good people, and Hershel saying they have to give people a chance, and Glenn telling him to take a risk. He walks on.

As they cover ground the one called Michael tells brief pieces of his story, but what little he relays through labored breaths is none too illuminating, and with every pace the question hovers over them, haunting their progress:  _Who are these guys?_

Twice more in their journey they encounter walkers, but only a few, and the kid Michael proves resourceful in dispatching one despite still being unarmed. It's unclear whether this should count in his favor or against him —  _is he capable, or just that lethal?_  Bits of stories of quick escapes and past lives do not earn him Daryl's trust. All he knows to trust is Beth. Daryl keeps his eyes on the treeline, on the path Beth is forging and the trail they're leaving behind them. He'll never forgive himself if this is a trap.

As the sun inches towards midday they follow the stream to where it deepens, its now fast-flowing waters cutting further into the ground without getting all that much wider. Under the cover of the tall whistling trees their path takes them to a sort of plateau, half level with and bordered by the water, and half broken down into a crumbling difficult-to-scale ledge, making a natural bastion.

By the looks of it, the plateau had at one point been an island skirted on either side by breakaways from the same creek, but in time the point in the stream where the water diverged became clogged with drifting debris and the scratched-together structures of river animals. In a dry season, likely many years before, that creek bed dried out and slowly, with rainfall and erosion, dropped away, rendering the 'island' a kind of shelf, lined by deep, fast running water on one side, and sort-of cliffs, maybe nine feet at their tallest, on the other. The spot is well-situated, nestled among tight-grown pines banking the river just before it drops, and below, at the base of the shelf, water pools where the river cuts back, bending round in a deep hole before running west on lower ground, spreading back into a thinner trickle.

The plateaued rampart is small, stretching length-wise maybe no further back than thirty feet, across maybe fifteen at its widest; it would take a keen, resourceful eye to recognize it as the refuge it is. Though it'd be easy enough to pass it by, not see in it its potential, likely it's the safest, if not only, harborage in these open woods. Contingent, as ever, on the people who lay claim to it.

Daryl stops and takes the spot in, impressed by its situation and the forethought of these people for seeing the location for what it is. Looking further he sees its boundaries have been further fortified with a trench dug at the bottom of the steep slope; this place is worth defending. Immediately his eyes scan for trouble.

His gaze narrows; Daryl's head shifts imperceptibly toward Michael, but he keeps his eyes trained on the fortress of sorts. He hitches their burden better against his weight, "You find this place?"

But the kid leading them isn't thinking about the story or the positioning of his camp, his mind appears singularly on his broken friend. Daryl shoulders more of the weight of the fading Peter and follows the kid Michael up to the river's edge; Beth, now in close follow behind them, is sharply aware of their surroundings, staying alert and remaining cautious. Though she was willing to believe his story, and chose to help deliver these two back to their camp, she is reserving her judgment, withholding her trust, until she better knows who and what they're dealing with. Trust is never earned if not given a chance, but it's worth nothing if it's given away freely. To trust is an act of hopeful faith, and that is in short supply; it cannot be squandered.

From the stillness there's an immediate and sharp whistle from Michael, then he calls out, "Bridge! Now!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I would love nothing more than to blow off work and school and midterms to work more on this and my other stories, my updates will most likely still be gapped (I have a tendency to slip into a vortex of fanfic writing, and I'm trying to fight that as best I can! Thanks for continuing to read, I love hearing from you!)


	17. Chapter 17

From seemingly nowhere emerge two more ragged and tattered boys, one maybe sixteen, the other closer to nineteen. With them they produce wood planks tethered into one and drop the thing across the fast-running water as a pathway from the wooded embankment to the island. John crosses first with Daryl following, the limp Peter strung up by his arms between them. A third having joined them, three boys now stand in amazement and worry as two strangers, one a girl, pass into their camp with two of their own, Peter badly beaten. It is not missed on them the man's hand is noticeably bloody.

As soon as Beth's foot touches ground behind Daryl the planks are lifted and moved away from the water then all eyes fall on Daryl, Beth, and Peter. "What happened?" one of them, maybe the oldest, asks in a mix of hard suspicion and panic.

Michael doesn't waste time answering; he lowers his friend to the ground and splashes water on his face, patting his cheeks vigorously, "Pete! Peter?"

"What's going on?" another presses, this one younger, with hair so blonde it's almost white.

"Pete?" Michael pushes on, trying to revive his comrade. The tall one, the eldest, pushes him aside and kneels beside the bloodied boy. He puts an ear to his mouth and then to his chest, listening for breath.

The boy Peter's breathing is labored, but it is present, and Beth can see his eyelids fluttering. It looks as though with some time he'll be all right. The one on his knees relaxes some and falls back on his heels, then looks back at his three companions. "Mikey," he asks pointedly, "what happened?"

Michael indicates the newcomers. "There was a mix-up. Pete got the bad end of it." Beth can't decide if this censured retelling is generous on his part for Daryl's sake, or if he's covering up his own part in it all. She looks on as he looks back at his group, who are growing more and more tense, "They're all right." He nods slightly, "This is Beth." Beth's mouth makes the shape of a would-be smile, still unsure of the footing they're standing on. She doesn't know these boys, and they don't know them — all they do know is Daryl nearly killed their friend. "n' Daryl," the eighteen-year-old shrugs.

Daryl eyes them all keenly, waiting to see if they can be trusted, waiting to see if there'll be an ambush or attack. He stays light on his feet, ready to move, ready to cover Beth, should a reckoning come. But no such event seems to lie in wait for them; the boys — the eldest no older than nineteen, the youngest maybe all of fifteen — look at them, the same look of confusion and wary vigilance on each of their faces. The oldest, the nineteen-year-old, who bears similar features with one of the younger ones now rises and steps forward.

"Hey." He waits for a response and in time Daryl gives him a stiff reticent nod, all the while keeping alert, keeping his eyes active, taking in everything in their surroundings. The young man studies him, then gives his name, "James."

Daryl shifts his weight and nods again, and because he doesn't know what else to say, having no clear read on the situation, he grunts and gives his name again. "Daryl."

Beth steps forward some, as no one else seems to be able to make sense of the encounter, "This  _your_  camp?" Neither she nor Daryl can get a clear read on any of this. This strip of earth isn't large enough to house too many people, but still there may be more members in their ranks, lurking unseen.

At this prompting from Beth James surveys the encampment, as though making sure it really is his camp, though his true intent is to assess if they're under attack, questioning if all they have here is under threat.  _Are these two here, this girl and this man, some kind of Trojan horse?_ "Yeh." His words are tight and curt. James studies the strangers further, figuring it's unlikely someone would beat up their comrade then show up with no show of aggression if they meant them harm.  _If the intention is to quell them in preparation for a surprise attack, why beat Peter? Why show up with the evidence of the attack so markedly on one's person?_ "Yeh," he grunts again. "Well," he stops himself, " _ours._  I'm not— We don't have leaders." It's the truth, but looking at Daryl and her, he wonders if this is information he should not have betrayed.

Beth nods, and looks around. The plateau goes further back than what it'd first appeared to, tailing back at one end to a thick growth of saplings and brush growing so tightly together nothing but a small child or animal could get through. She sees where the creek wraps back around the land, breaking down a ledge where the water cuts down a back edge of slate, rock and earth into a sort of broken trickle of a waterfall, pooling below more than halfway around the shelf of the once-was island, then resumes as a stream running south-west through the woods. On the ledge of ground claimed as these boys' camp are several dug-out fire pits, several twig and scrap-wood built shelters, somewhat camouflaged by the materials they're constructed from, two jerry-rigged hammocks, and assorted other signs of life and survival. She blinks. "How long have you been here?"

Michael looks at Peter, then at James and at the others; no one knows how long this indefinite armistice with the strangers will last. Eventually James speaks up, a bit gruff in his delivery, perhaps compensating for the disparity of age, bulk, and general all-around ruggedness on display betwixt himself and this Daryl. "More 'n a year."

Neither Beth nor Daryl can conceive of this being true.  _More than a year? In one place? A place so open and exposed as this? How can that be?_  "There any more of you?" Daryl grunts, looking around.

Again the eyes of all the boys follow these two intruders  _— What do they want? Why all these questions? Should they be honest or tell a lie? What will get them what they need?_   _Namely, safety, and leave to continue to exist as they have done?_  "There're seven of us," James says. "All together." Including the battered Peter there only totals five of that seven accounted for…

Daryl looks at him, "How many you start with?"

James looks at the others, he looks at Peter on the ground, slowly starting to wheeze, he looks back at Daryl, straight in the eye. "We started out with hundreds. We started out with thousands. We started out with seven billion. We lost all but seven." This kid is smart, and though he's on edge he's personable, and his meaning isn't lost on Beth and Daryl, and all this counts for something in the running ledger they're keeping in their heads. "Why?" he looks at Daryl stiffly, "How many did'you lose?"

"Too many," he answers, with a hard distant edge.

James now directs his attention to Michael, "Why'd you bring them here?" His eyes glance again at Beth and Daryl, "They  _staying_?" He looks at Daryl with narrowed eyes, projecting a fierceness he's still too young and not built enough to really fully pull off, "You planning on staying?"

Daryl doesn't falter; he does not hesitate in his reply. "We don't know what this—" meaning the camp itself, it's situation and its people "—is."

"'This—'" the younger boy who looks like James interjects, "s the best naturally protected spot in these woods. 'This' is the best you're ever gonna find."

"Jo Jo!" the other one of them reproaches. Even before the change it was never especially smart to boast of what you have to strangers who do not. So that again is one small tilt in the scale toward trusting this group. It's clear from their confusion they're not used to meeting people; they may not have encountered another group for months, maybe more. By all accounts it does not seem like it has ever happened on the grounds of their actual camp before.

Michael looks in consideration from his companions to the two people he'd brought with him to camp. "Peter was bringing her back; he was going to let her in."

"Then what happened to his face?" the smaller facsimile of James interrogates. "Why isn't he standing up, saying all this to us himself?"

"Like I said," Michael maintains, "there was a miscommunication." He looks at Daryl, "You did this 'cuzza her? Right?" Daryl looks at him, at the other faces, and at Beth; he nods mutely. "All right then," he says satisfied, "he thought we were taking her, we weren't; Peter was going to take her in, now instead of one we got two."

"Now instead of one small girl—" the supposed younger brother chimes in "—we got her and this Frank Miller character who beat the  _shit_  out of one of us. Good call."

"How else was I gonna get Pete back?" Michael challenges. "The kooks were swarming in, we almost didn't make it. I needed them."

"Yeah? Well, now we got 'em." The boy looks at Daryl. "What do you want?"

"What do'ya think?"

"We don't know, Mr. Blonde, that's why we're asking." He looks at him, "You gonna try n' take this place?" He glances at Beth, "You an' her, an' the rest of your crew gonna come in here at night and slit our throats?"

"There aren't any others," Daryl says, and his voice is so grave as he says it, so empty and flat, the four boys know enough to take it as the truth. "We're not looking to take nothin' off' nobody. That's not who we are."

"Who  _are_ you?" This came from the fair-haired one, who looks to be the youngest — maybe fifteen or fourteen — though maybe it's just that he's smaller.

"Daryl," he grunts. "Dixon. This is Beth Greene; we're on the road."

"Just the two of you?" The boys are amazed.

"Mm,hm." Daryl's hooded eyes aren't meeting theirs. Some stories don't want to be told.

"What are you looking for?" It's James again who's asking the questions.

"Safety," Beth answers.

"This place is safe."

"Nothing is safe," Daryl corrects them.

"That mean you're moving on?"

Daryl looks at Beth. He looks at the borders. He looks at the resources surrounding them, and scans the faces of these kids who don't seem to pose any threat or threaten any danger — he'd almost given up those sorts of faces still exist. He looks back to Beth, who looks like she wants to stay, at least for a while. They can't walk forever.

Daryl looks at them, with meaning, "How many walkers you kill?"

"'Walkers'? You mean the dead ones?" Daryl nods. "A lot. I don't know. We avoid 'em more than anything, but we've killed a lot. Why?"

Daryl doesn't answer, he asks his next question. "How many people you kill?"

The boys look at him. They look at each other. The answer comes solemnly, "Six, I think. Maybe seven."

"Why?"

"… Different reasons. Some of 'em, our families, they were hurt, had the fever."

"Or they got swarmed. Weren't going to make it."

"And the others?" Beth asks. All eyes fall on her.

"They were bad." It's the blonde one, the youngest, who answered.

Daryl looks at him, intently, his narrowed eyes studying him so closely as to make out his entire character just by observation, "How do you know who is 'bad'?"

"You just do. Badness makes itself known, sooner than later."

These words strike deep; Daryl eye's drift towards Beth, he's thinking of the Governor, and all the missed chances they'd had at stopping him. "Not soon e'nough," he mutters. He looks back at the boys. "How do'you know  _we_  ain't bad?"

"If you were bad, really truly bad, you'd look fairer; or much fouler." James' allusion is lost on Daryl but the reasoning seems sound enough.

"So you're staying?" Michael puts it to them.

Daryl looks to Beth, and Beth Greene nods. When she looks at the boys, their newly, as events played out, adopted group, her eyes are bright, full with sweet disbelief as she takes in these faces and this, their new camp. It is not home; it is not the prison, or the farm, there are no walls, no infrastructure of comfort; her family is not here, but yet, it is  _something_ — a  _good_ something — after so much bad, after so much  _nothing_. The world is no safer, they are not out of woods, but this is a relief, a reprieve, she had not thought they would find. "Thank you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not familiar, the "Mr. Blonde" is a Reservoir Dogs reference. (The earlier posted version said "Fists of Ironwood", a character from Magic the Gathering; at the time I posted I couldn't find my earlier drafted version and couldn't recall what I'd written in that moment.) The Fellowship of the Ring also appears in a moment of reference.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say after last night? (S5 mid-season finale aptly named "Coda") Stay strong. xx

 

Daryl shifts and keeps his eyes peeled. Night's fallen and he's standing watch with the towheaded kid, the young one. Two keep watch instead of one any time two or more of them are out of the camp, like two are tonight, but Daryl wouldn't have slept anyways, won't for days, not till every fiber in him knows it'll be all right if he does. It'll take longer than that probably until he'll stand down off of night watch and allow himself to close his eyes while Beth too sleeps. Until then he'll sleep days, little spells while Beth's alert and on watch. Being taken in by this group of kids 's not broken up the unit he's built these months with her; he'll look out for and help anyone he can, but still, primarily, it's their twosome he's fighting for. And it's one another's back they'll each be watching while the other sleeps. Then again, there's an unease he feels about passing out and leaving her on her own to contend with these boys, should complications unfold and circumstances take an unsavory turn. Daryl grits his teeth—  _Better to sleep together? Or in staggered shifts?_  He hates these layers of doubt. But he trusts her toughness, and that she can handle herself, and knows that that, and that eventually they'll both need sleep, are the only two solid truths he's got to work with. That and that they need people. Still, he can't work out how things have to be now there are newcomers in the mix.

They've agreed to stay on, for now, that's where things landed, and from what he's seen and heard — despite the terror and fury brought on by the events of the morning — he doesn't anticipate trouble. The morning's commotion put him on edge for sure; so panicked was he he might have killed those two boys if things had played out even just slightly differently, but he's let it go. Moving forward, as ever they must, demands not dwelling on what's past. This is where they are now, and if he tries, he could maybe make this work. But there's always the knowledge they've been generous with trust before, and many times have come to regret it. Though, as he stands there keeping watch, thinking these thoughts, he knows if Beth could be party to this line of thinking she'd point out all the times the extending of their trust h _a_ d paid off: Hershel letting the Atlanta group stay (though admittedly that wasn't exactly a case of trust); bringing Michonne in, bringing in Axel and Oscar, bringing in the survivors of Woodbury, bringing in the folks from the road. And in the end, even bringing in Merle. Each chance taken had proven worth it. If he and she'd had the chance during any of this — to step aside, to talk this out between just the two of them, Beth might have argued there were more people who had deserved their trust and made the group stronger than those like the Governor. There may even be some truth in it, but all the same that truth does nothing to negate or mitigate the unflinching truth of the road:  _People. Are. Lethal_. Humankind can be vicious and calculating and merciless. One thing they've learned, too many times now:  _Danger begets danger._  The times create the people who live in them.

But knowing all that, still Beth and Daryl have chosen to see if they might make a place for themselves here. In these woods, with these boys, they're taking a different kind of chance. And so Daryl stands guard as the darkness circles in around the camp, while Beth and the others eat and converse. He stands alert, on guard and at the ready, but no more on edge than he's used to — his immediate concerns quelled (at least for the time being), Daryl tries to settle himself into the mindset of being back with a group. He'll never relax though, not fully; it was a mistake to have ever allowed himself that luxury at the prison. Safety does not last. And in this moment of transition from two to group, he's staying sharp, keeping all his senses active, and feeling out the makeup of the camp.

The kid Simon he's on watch with stands on a rock, several paces from Daryl, slowly, methodically raising and lowering himself from the balls of his feet. He's wearing night-vision goggles, staring out into the wilderness, silent, and strangely almost serene.

Daryl glances over at him, and the low rumble of his gruff voice breaks the silence surrounding them, "How old are'ya?"

"Fifteen." Simon pushes the goggles onto his forehead. "I think. Just turned thirteen when all this happened."

Daryl grunts. "Thirteen." His eyes shut momentarily, then he tries to force himself out of that mind frame with a shake of his head. "I know a kid 'bout your age."

The boy Simon turns his head toward Daryl. "'Kn _o_ w' or 'kn _e_ w'?"

Uncomfortable, Daryl shuffles his feet into the dirt. "Don't kn _o_ w."

The kid studies him unblinking. "You got separated?"

Worrying his bottom lip, Daryl stands there, his eyes resisting focusing on anything. "Mm,hm," he sort of mutters. He'd had to move past it, their losses; to some degree he and Beth Both had, but it didn't make talking about it, or dwelling on it any easier.

"You knew him  _before_?"

Slowly Daryl shakes his head, "Naw." His eyes lift up to the appearing stars, and back his head tilts heavily, the thoughts and memories on his mind too weighty and big to be held upright. "...No. ... That's not—" He cuts himself off and instead just shakes his head roughly, "Don't miss nothin' from b'fore."

Simon looks at him, this forbidding looking man, gruff and silent, brawny and dangerous, claiming not to miss anything.  _Who is he?_  "Nothing?" he retorts. "Not your family? Or your friends?"

Daryl glances back where she sits further back around a low burning fire with the two other boys, and watches Beth. He does miss his friends, and he misses his family, but all that came to him — in some ways even Merle too — in this new world. When the change struck, Daryl, like everyone, lost everything, but the losses since then have been far more devastating. The spaces left open by the fallen prison and their people haunt him in the rare stillnesses he finds. Their absences creep in when his guard is down, eating at him. Mostly his thoughts and efforts stay trained on Beth and himself, putting everything they both have into staying alive one more day, each day they wake, but in times of quiet, when he can afford it, his mind drifts, without permission, unwittingly back to the farm, back to the prison, and to the fields where men he loved — Hershel, Dale, Merle, were cut down and destroyed. Those were the ends he knows—  _What about the others...?_

Daryl clears his throat, and looks back to the kid, back to the woods. "You been here a year?"

Barely visible in the darkness the kid responds with a nod. "More than." This Simon's quiet, he doesn't say a lot.

It had just barely reached midday when Beth and Daryl had committed to staying on, but there'd been no sharing or story swapping to follow. Peter's cuts had had to be washed, and his body bound; there was food to find and kindling to gather, walkers to kill and camp adjustments to be made. Daryl sniffs in the chilled air, "You been together since the beginning?"

"Pretty much." Simon does not tell the story of his mother and younger brother's ends — how he'd lost them early on, right at the beginning, leaving him — still very much a child in many ways — alone in a world increasingly more savage and breaking every day further from the rule of law.

The silence that follows is packed with untold stories, Daryl recognizes it well. He clears his throat. "You knew all these guys in your old life?"

At that moment Simon drops the binoculars back down to the bridge of his nose and scans the woods. Daryl in turn follows suit, and though he's kept his senses trained on the surrounding borders of this little encamped jetty the entire time he's been feeling out this new companion of sorts, he now turns and actively scans the woods. He may not have night vision goggles, but Daryl's spent more than the last two-and-something years in the woods at night; he's been studying, and listening to the sounds and shifts of the Georgian backwoods his entire life. And he sees nothing out there. Either this Simon kid is tuned in to the natural world in a way Daryl's never seen, or he's overly jumpy. Could be he's just cautious.  _Cautious is good_ , Daryl reasons.  _Cautious is smart_. Still, there's nothing out there. Still Simon watches, intently, and only after the passing of several silent beats does his body slacken some and he pushes the military-grade glasses back onto his shaggy bleach-blonde forehead, then like nothing he returns from his absolute focus back to Daryl, and his companions, and their little spot in the wilderness, and to the stories that brought them to calling this place 'home'. Daryl waits. They've got time. "Ya knew 'em?" he prompts again, the natural gruffness in his voice possibly difficult to distinguish from brusque impatience.

"Yeh," the younger one murmurs in the shadows. "Most of 'em."

Simon does not tell the story of James rushing home from college at the start of all of this to look for his mother and for his younger sister and kid brother, and for the rest of their family. As it played out the only one left for James to find was his cousin John, younger by three years. John, or 'Jo-Jo', as the ones who have known him since childhood sometimes call him, lived next door to Peter — James' best friend, and a junior in high school when the world stopped — and Simon tells how James found the two of them, John and Peter, holed up at Peter's with what remained of their families, fending off the creatures with baseball bats, golf clubs and tire irons. As it'd happened Jo-Jo's best friend Rob — one of the two they're waiting on to return to camp — had been with them at the point things took a dire turn and the doors and windows had to be shut tight and staying off the streets became more than prudence; within no time staying put suddenly was essential to survival. Rob couldn't make it to his family's home, he couldn't make it down the street. It had of course taken some time to learn what was needed to take the dead down definitively. It took longer not to be petrified.

So Rob was with Peter and John when James made his way back to town. When they were organized enough to attempt evacuating and to seek out more stable shelter the group made a stop at Rob's. It was a good thing. His father was still there, immobilized by the loss of his family and the disappearance of his eldest son; Rob's resurrection was enough to get him moving, to get him out, but one night, swarmed by a herd in the early days in a refugee camp, he'd been claimed, and Rob was left just one more survivor who'd out-survived the rest of his family.

Rob is where Simon entered the story. He'd lived across from his family his entire life; Simon had on some occasions played with John and Rob, and they'd all three gone to school together. It was Peter and James, hanging at his cousin's house, who'd urged Simon to climb out his bedroom window and join in on a late night drive in Peter's "borrowed" family car the summer he'd turned twelve, back before there were much graver worries than being discovered by parents for driving unlawfully without permission and without license.

By the time they'd got a plan and supplies to get out of town, hardly anyone was left, few parents, few kid siblings, very little. Simon, with no one left but him in his own home, after watching his sole parent be devoured in protection of him and his siblings, had gotten out with James and Peter and the others.

In the midst of the panic and the carnage Peter had quickly taken charge and gotten them out of their overrun town, and in time, when refugee camps and emergency shelters started falling, either to the rotters or to looters, he and James got them out of the towns, off the roads, and away from the reaches of the living as they watched as humankind turn more and more savage. It was into the woods they escaped, where they could create their own fortress of sorts, and eek out a modest, small-scale self-sufficient survivors' enclave. Along the way they lost people and gained them, but the group as it now stands, seven boys under twenty, together in the wilderness, have been together mostly from the start. The small one, Mike, they'd met at some point on the run and taken in, just as Peter had early on banded up with Tom — another in the group not presently in camp. Tom, Simon retells, originated from Missouri; his family's journey east to reunite with family in Georgia had met some complications. And though none were claimed by walkers, in the end none but he were left standing. Peter's timely intercession likely saved his life.

Daryl listens to the outline of their history, intermittently he nods. Most of the boys have a link to one another from before the fall — a family tie or a bond of friendship, or neighborly connections. (He thinks he sees some good in that.) And now they  _are_  a family, lost boys who found themselves in a world of chaos and carved out a world of their own among the trees, among the wilderness, and away from the real dangers of this new world — men.

Daryl doesn't press for details. These are already stories he knows. Stories he's lived, and seen, and tried to forget. The world is full of them; they don't all need to be told. But Daryl's not through asking questions. "How's it you've never been overrun?"

"By the dead?" Daryl nods. "We have. Big packs of 'em — hundreds — 've moved through these woods twice. We get outta their way; circle back when it's clear. But," he indicates, gesturing with the machete he holds, "we're not really in their path. They move between city centers, we're nowhere near that. They move through highways where there's more clearance for them, we're nowhere near that. We're not a big group; we don't draw attention to ourselves."

"'s a mist _a_ ke," Daryl grunts, "if you think that makes you safe."

Simon looks at him, with earnestness, and a slight smile in recognition of the fruitlessness of it all. Sooner or later the beast that's out there hunting the world will take them all; he knows they're just biding time. "We've got dead-proof borders, for the most part. We keep watch, we've got these," he glances upwards to his forehead and his night vision goggles. "We got distracters out there. We've got escape routes and exit strategies. We travel light. Few times we've had to leave we've been back the next day. Two tops."

"What about people?" Daryl's voice comes off darker than the night around them.

Simon doesn't respond at first. But his voice is airier than Daryl would have expected after such a pause. He was expecting a story — one similar to his and Beth's, such things seem largely unavoidable these days. Even with the numbers and the power they had at the prison... He had been expecting a story, or at east the absence of one — a dark and heavy silence bearing witness to the stories left untold, but Simon's eventual reply is not so easy to decipher. "We don't see a lot of them. It's been a while."

In the darkness sounds the light lilt of Beth's soft giggle. Daryl sees her face lit, by more than the campfire; she is pretty. She looks happy. Daryl turns back to the dark woods, back to the watch, stealing a glance in his counterpart's direction, "How long?"

"Months. More. Sometimes it feels like we're the only ones left. Like there's no  _any_ thing anymore; just us. And the wilderness..."

"It's not," Daryl grunts. "There's a l _o_ t still out there besides a bunch o' kids playin' c _a_ mpout."

"Of course," Simon nods.

"More 'n the d _ea_ d," Daryl adds.

"Yeah..." Silence settles between them, and each listens to the sounds of the night. Behind them is the soft chatter of the other boys, and Beth. "You've said that b'fore, tonight," Simon breaks the quiet with some reflection.

Daryl's head turns stiffly toward him, "Said wh _u_ t?"

"'Kids,'" Simon says. "'Kids,' 'playing,' 'camping.' Seems like you don't take us very seriously."

Daryl kicks the ball of his foot into the damp ground, "Knew 'nough to claim this place," he offers.

"That was Peter," Simon says flatly.

"Good eye," Daryl acknowledges.

"We're not still alive by dumb luck."

"M'bye not," the older one allows, "but luck's got us all in its sights. Gonna run out one day; can't control ev'rythin'. No matter wh _u_ t skill you got." Daryl swings his arm, "No tellin'  _who_  could be through here tomorrow. Or wh _a_ t they'd be after."

Simon studies him. He's used to adults — or, he  _was_ , when there were still adults around to be 'used to' — trying to make things better, trying to fix things, or at least try to make you feel better. But this man is doing anything  _but_  trying to make him feel better, but maybe that is the best way to take care of someone these days. Though, in Simon's book, he and his friends are doing all right. They don't need to be made to feel better, they don't need to be looked after by a grumbling, suspicious, middle aged, battle-worn stranger; they're doing all right, with no losses for months.

"Whut'chya do if someone comes in, try'n tuh take this place? Lay claim on whut's yours?"

"Is that what  _you're_  trying?"

Daryl looks at him, his eyes empty. Softly, sadly, his head shakes. "Naw." Daryl misses the weight of his Stryker hanging down his back, or heavy in his arms. He misses so many things. "But someone will. Some day. Whut'llya do?"

Simon looks at him again. It's been a long time since he's had to make out someone's nature, interpret their purposes and decipher their character. "If it comes down to us or them, I think we'd leave."

"Just like that? Leave everything you've got?" Daryl questions.

"'s just stuff. We haven't got much. We're pretty Thoreau that way. Better to lose and walk away; lose it anyway if you're dead."

Daryl thinks on this. He knows it's not what Rick would say, nor Carol, or even Glenn. "'s what Beth'd say."


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the lovely readers & followers! I so appreciate hearing from you! If the chapters are feeling a little slow they will pick up, they are all in service of the long story arc, which has been roughly plotted and partially written in snippets since spring. (Crazy to think I originally saw this going no further than 3-4 chapters.) It's the finding time to write and smooth things out that's taking time. Thanks for the patience!

The two boys out in the woods never returned that night. Neither Simon, nor the one who replaced him on watch  _—_  John, Daryl thinks this one is called, or Joe  _—_  seem too agitated. As they say, it's not common, but on occasion members of the camp'll stay away longer than a day, either because they tracked an animal too far, or got cut off or diverted by walkers, or by some other thing. Their absence is not especially of concern, yet. Daryl and the other stood watch through the night, uninterrupted and disturbed by nothing, other than the aching in Daryl's exhausted body, and the heaviness pulling at the back of his head. All was quiet, and eventually the vast darkness broke to dawn, and Daryl and Beth had made it to another day.

Beth slept the night alone in one of the camp's three structures, surprisingly cozy, burrowed in and nestled like some kind of nest. Beneath the slanted roofs built from pallets, fence planks and branches, lined on insides with tarps and plastics, are dugout floors extending maybe two, maybe three feet down, giving the little rooms more clearance than expected from without. The benefit of the sunken bottoms being they leave less building to be done and less above ground to be spotted through the woods. Beds are made in the hollowed ground, packed with blankets and sleeping bags, lined first with what plastic they can find, in order to keep moisture in the earth from seeping through. The width and length of the 'beds' extend no further than what's required for two to sleep side by side, three in a pinch, and yet, beneath one of the scrap roofs, to a person road weary and without a home, it seems snugly roomy; an unsought for comfort really. Without each hut is dug a shallow trough designed to keep the dropped interiors from flooding when it rains. In the winters, on the cold nights, there the boys lie, tucked warm in the earth, below the wind, with dugout tunnels, no wider than an arm, piping in warm air from the dug-down concealed fire pits. In the summers the shade keeps the structures much cooler than the thick Georgian heat, and with the tarp linings down and the flaps left open, night breezes pleasantly find their ways through.

Beth woke in the morning surprised at how soundly she'd slept. She awoke and rose in the early morning light to join the others at the low burning fire. She moves past the two structures other structures, each constructed just as the one she'd occupied, noting again the manner in which they're planted among a network of fire pits and hammocks. The camp is small, but efficiently, and most cleverly contained. The assemblage of it does not appear to have been haphazard.

Her legs stiff, Beth lowers herself, seating herself beside Daryl on a log, and accepts a plate of breakfast one of them hands her. The meal of wild-grown onions and trout is warm and savory, and she accepts it gratefully. "Mornin'," Daryl's gruff, up-all-night voice greets her.

"Morning," she smiles.

Daryl tugs fondly on a scrap of her shorn hair, and watches silently as she eats. He drinks from his bottle of water then passes it to her. There is some conversation while the meal is taken, but mostly they're all still waking up, or on their last legs before nodding off. Mostly they eat, and shiver as their bodies adjust to the frigid morning air. Once Beth's finished the meal, and he's climbed down the bank with her and watched after her as she relieved herself some paces down river where the camp has designated the space for such business, and seen her returned, and assured himself she still has on her her knife, he brushes her hand, then puts himself to sleep in the bed she's just left empty.

The camp breaks out into quiet activity of minutiae. Michael takes a shovel to a barren stretch of earth sheltered between the third hut and the thicket of close-growing saplings, and begins to trace out a square, three by six feet, to dig. John, like Daryl also just off watch, takes an extra serving of fish and reclines himself in a hammock, letting the morning sun warm his night-chilled skin as he drifts to sleep. Simon stokes the fire, keeping it at a low, even burn, and puts a kettle over it to boil water, then sets about putting the camp into order. Expecting to be of use, Beth eyes the dwindling pile of kindling, then puts herself to work gathering more fuel. There isn't a lot available on the island – what coverage they have in the brush and young trees is part of what keeps the settlement protected and undetected; it is counter productive to hack away at that. What she must do is cross the river, or once more scale down the ledge of the dried riverbank, but she suspects Daryl would find it hard to forgive her if he woke to find her gone, even if she remained in sight. Instead, she collects what she can then takes her knife to a branch and sets herself to the task of shaving it down for tinder. On the road, between herself and Daryl the division of labor had been innate and happened naturally, as occurs with bonded groups of two. But here, in this actual group, who's inner workings she does not know yet, she can only guess what needs to be done, and how and by whom each task is accomplished. Beth has always pulled herself through by setting her mind to a task, but it occurs to her this is the first time since the turn she's been new to a group, or an outsider at all. Rick and his companions had been the strangers in the established routine on her father's farm. The prison had been her home as much as anyone's since the first night they took it; it's only now she realizes that though they must all have jobs to do, she doesn't know which ones are hers.

While the others work, before he leaves to check the traps, James ducks back into a hut to check on Peter. Beth watches, then scrambles to stand, and then to assist as James walks the stiff and aching Peter to the fire, helping to lower him to sit. Simon pours him a cup of warm broth, and they all kind of stand in place watching him drink in slow, halting spurts. His breathing is labored, and he's terribly banged up, and in a lot of evident pain, but he's recovering. What injury was done to his head in blunt force does not appear to have caused lasting damage.

Between sips his battered and bruised eye tries to take Beth in and focus on her as she offers him a meek smile. Peter's head nods at her, or rather, he blinks in the fashion of the head nod he would have made were there not a disorienting throbbing in his head. Her wide doleful eyes take him in. "Beth," she speaks.

"Yeh," he coughs. "I'heard."

James hands over the saved plate of food he's not sure his friend is ready for, then looks him over. "I've cut up an aspirin in quarters. Take one, if it gets too bad." Peter shakes his head limply, and effects what might pass for a grin if his face weren't so badly misshapen. "I'm walking the north traps today." Again Peter makes something close to a nod then waves James off with a flick of his finger. He doesn't need to be mothered. In turn James nods, shoulders a game back, packs a pistol in his back waistband, checks his knife in his belt, and takes up a long blade from where some hang in the foliage — cloaked, like everything else in camp, in this case hung and at the ready to grab, but kept out of the sun, safe from any light that might hit them and beam reflections through the leaves, unknowingly announcing their presence. With his gear collected James swings over the border water with a line previously camouflaged in the brush; from the other side he chucks it back across the running stream where Simon catches it, and tucks it once again into the overgrowth of saplings where even Beth, having just watched it, is hard pressed now to see it.

Watching the broken faced boy first blow on, and then grimace as his face makes the necessary contractions to swallow his broth, Beth rises and retrieves her pack from where it lies at Daryl's feet in the hut. She pulls from it, without waking him, a scrap of cloth from among her few meager possessions, then crosses back and wets it in the cool stream. Wringing it out, Beth returns with it to the log, and without word or overture she folds it neatly then holds it gently to his swollen eye. Michael, looking on, shovel still in hand, nods to himself, and continues his digging; he doesn't think he was wrong, bringing in these two. Simon checks the boiling water then picks up another shovel and digs with Michael, slowly scratching off the surface within the outline Michael had marked.

Though he's wincing at her touch, light as it is, Beth examines the markings on Peter's face. The swelling is large and looks painful, but with time it will heel, as will the cut in his split lip, if they can keep it clear from infection. Presenting itself as the most troubling is the deep gash in his brow, just above right eye. It had been washed and bandaged the day before, but the wrap is now soaked through with blood and the cut shows no signs of closing on its own, as they had thought yesterday it might. Beth's soft brow furrows in consternation.

"That's reassuring," he tells her.

Beth shakes her head. "It'll be all right. Jus'—" she pauses as she examines closer "—gotta get it to close." She dabs at the blood. "Need a sewing kit."

Simon nods. "We have one." He drops his shovel and makes towards the trees. In no time he's producing a different rope, undoing its knots, and letting in slack to lower a plastic canister from where it's hung above head amidst the canopy of leaves formed by the reaching branches of the larger trees across the riverbank. Once the canister is within reach Simon once again tightens the rope, leaving the container hanging chest height in the air, ready for him to unseal the lid and remove, not just any only sewing kit, but a medical grade suture kit. He brings it, and a mason jar of clear liquid, over to the patient and the scruffy-headed girl. He looks at her, "You gonna do it?"

Beth looks from him to the gash. Her father was the doctor. Maggie assisted more than she ever did; Beth did other jobs — fetching things that needed bringing, washing linens and cutting bandages. She hadn't helped when the fevers hit the prison, she babysat, and when her father lost her leg, it was Carol and Lori who'd done that nursing. She waits to see if any of the others present themselves for the job. And though she suspects each would were there no one else to do it, in the moment no one steps forward. Beth nods with "I c'n."

"You got steady hands?"

"I can shoot straight," Beth offers.

Peter chokes on a scoff. "C'n bel _ie_ ve th _a_ t."

"Here." Simon passes over the jar. "Only use a little. That's all there is."

Beth takes the jar and with force unscrews the lid. The fumes hit her immediately. She knows this smell, toxic and pungent, mixed with memories of Daryl and rising flames; it smells to her like smoke.  _Moonshine._  She glances at Simon and Michael, then dribbles just a little onto her fingers before she touches anything else. Then she takes the kit being offered her, snaps it open and studies the supplies: gauze, gloves, one straight and one curved needle, forceps, surgical scissors, and suture thread. There are individual antiseptic packets as well, but Beth foregoes the gloves and the wipes as a tactic of rationing, and instead uses the scissors to clip off a small square of gauze, then uses the forceps to dip into the moonshine and hold against the cut. Peter winces and his pallor drops two shades lighter, but he does not buck or pull away. Satisfied the wound's clean, Beth threads the curved needle, ties a knot at the end, and steadies herself.

"Ready?" she asks. Receiving a brusque nod from the patient, Beth makes the first stitch, pulling the thread through slowly to get a feel for the skill, and in hopes of diminishing the pain, accomplishing only the first. Both Simon and Michael stop what they are doing, and in short time seat themselves again around the fire, watching the procedure.

"We haven't had to do this yet," Michael needlessly observes. They watch, as Beth makes six more stitches. A person trained in it might have made fewer, but she did the best as she was able, trying to summon in her mind the times she'd watched her father's unfailing hands perform the task with skilled assurance and honed certainty. Her father— Still it's difficult for her to think of. She grits her teeth, breathes, and focuses on the task at hand. It feels good to have a task, to be of use, to see something done.

As she works the two boys Simon and Michael watch her, meanwhile John dozes without concern in the nearest hammock and Daryl sleeps stiffly in a hut. Michael studies her face – all intent and drawn up in purpose, and he thinks back to try to recall what she'd looked like yester morning, when he and Peter first stumbled across her in the woods. She seemed to have appeared so much younger then, shaded by the flickering leaves as she was, gazing up into the sky and the breeze. After, as they'd dragged Peter back to camp, he'd felt compelled by Daryl's suspicions to say what needed saying to earn his trust, and to withhold the rest. In his accusation Daryl'd called Beth 'a young pretty girl', and Michael had fervently denied any nefarious intention; what Michael had not answered was: ' _Yes,_  she is young, but looked younger when they first caught sight of her in the shifting shadows of the trees', and ' _Yes,_  she's unequivocally pretty, the dirt and the hollowness of her cheeks and the pitiful showing of her hair not withstanding', and 'They  _had_  thought she was scared and alone, and in need of help  _—_  but upon closer acquaintance she's not exactly what he would consider helpless, or even vulnerable.' Once he'd had a better view of her, and watching her now, this Beth, she makes a rather formidable image. Her thin body looks to him to be all muscles, her person is bloody and gritty, and the expression she wears, while not steely or cold, and certainly not menacing, is fixed, and watchful, and penetrating. In the short time he's known her there have been flashes of moments in which he's spied what might be her true self  _—_ something softer, something brighter  _—_  but these two newcomers carry with them a battle-tried intimidating air  _—_  both of them  _—_  and looking at her now as she purports herself, he can't think of how he'd seen her as small, and in need of his protection. In truth, she looks like she's walked through hell  _—_  they both do — and 's still standing with grit. Michael said none of this, only pleaded his case, he had been, after all, trying to get them to trust him.

Beth ties off the last knot, trims the loose ends, dabs once more with the alcohol swab, then moves back some to study her work.

"D'you survive?" she asks him.

Too spent to muster much for words, Peter nods.

"You done that b'fore?" Michael asks while Simon collects the supplies and returns them to the container he once more hoists into the branches.

Beth's head shakes 'no' as her eyes follow the canister. "Do you hang everything?"

"'s a precaution," Peter breathes huskily.

"Keeps it safe from the corpses if we ever have to clear camp in a hurry. Don't want 'em shuffling it all into the water, or breaking things. Keeps the animals out of the food supply too."

It isn't missed on Beth there was no mention of people. Possibly the worst threat out there, and no mention.  _Why?_  Is this place so sheltered they really don't know what they're up against when it comes to the living? Are they hoping to ward an encounter off by not speaking the words? Is there some other reason, they do not fear the living?

The question lingers in her mind but there is little opportunity to dwell on it, the boys seem intent on commanding her attention.

"Tell us your story."

"How long 've you been on the road?"

"Where 're you comin' from?"

"Were you with a larger group?"

Beth breathes in; she's never had to tell her story. Not from start to finish. It isn't something she especially wants to tell, or relive. Alone with Daryl, he never asked questions. Most answers he knew already – he'd lived them with her, the others he let her keep. No one works to let the past lie like Daryl Dixon. Her eyes falter, and though Peter can hardly see, he does not miss her reticence toward this subject.

"You like our camp?"

The unexpectedness of the save takes Beth by surprise, and the appreciation of it shows as evident in the faintest appearance of her dimples. She nods stolidly, "I do."

"Havf'ta show you around," Simon inserts.

"There's a lot to it," offers Michael.

"You an'…" Peter struggles.

" _Daryl_ ," Beth completes for him.

"Right. Mr. Paranoid."

Beth looks at him sternly. "You had it coming." She's sorry he's hurting, but it's his and Michael's fault things happened as they did. She will not apologize. They should know better than to grab people.

"M'ybe." Then there's a glint that flashes in the depths of his swollen eyes. "He your father?" Two more sets of youthful eyes turn to her.

"No." She answers softly, delving no further into who Daryl is, and who he most definitely is not. It falls to them, to construe what they will of her silence that follows.

Beth looks around the camp, with one gone and two never yet returned, it's difficult to keep track of just how many of them there are. She recalls being told several had been lost. "Was there, did you have a fever come through? A terrible one?"

"No." Simon ducks his head toward her, "That what happened to you all? A fever?"

Because it's easier, and less painful to tell, Beth nods. "Partly."

No more is said of it as all heads lift and turn at the sound of a whistle calling through the trees at some near distance. The boys stand, and so does she, and in no time two brash looking boys burst through the foliage and make for the river. Something, as they bound closer, catches Beth's attention with singular interest. It is not their persons, nor the game they carry, but the shape of the thing hanging over one of their shoulders. A weapon. She sees it now, a crossbow.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, happy to be back with this story! It's been a long time I know; to the readers who have been here since the start thank you for sticking around, and hello & thank you to all of those who have found the story in the interim! (Those of you who are also reading "Hold On", I have the last four chapters plotted out, but what I have so far is reading flat and underwhelming, so I'm taking some time to think them over; unfortunately classes are starting up again so it may take a while to post again, but hopefully I left off in a satisfactory enough place.) This story has been left on it's own a while too; looking ahead I know exactly where it's going, but I haven't been feeling this chapter so much, or the next, but again, after some months I found myself in the 'if I don't write through it and post something I'm afraid it'll stay unfinished forever' bind. Okay, enough preamble.

Beth's pulse quickens, and her face flushes in apprehension, but she remains motionless, readying herself for whatever action will soon present as necessary. _Is it his?_

If it is Daryl's this is a gift and a warning all in one. What they've most sought has come back to them by chance, but that would mean they're staying and sleeping amongst the enemy. Beth's clear eyes strain, endeavoring to make it out before the distance between her and the weapon closes any further.  _Should she wake Daryl_? He'd never fault her for exercising caution. _Isn't it likely it is his? How many crossbows are out there? Obviously more than just his one, though many times since left on the road without it it's seemed as if it were. She could call him, but it might be feigned ignorance is the best card to play for now, till they have more to go on. Daryl's isn't the only crossbow in Georgia…_  She waits.

The others move forward towards their advancing companions, meanwhile Beth stays put, tensely standing watch, waiting to see what comes next, what play they'll have to make. She keeps her eyes open, her body ready to move.

Without the plank bridge and without the aid of the rope the two boys weaving through the woods at near full speed bound over the river, in a leap not easily made, one a walker could never manage. Out of breath and flushed they stand, quite pleased with themselves, ready to accept the praises of the camp, for coming back with meat, for arriving back in style.

Both of them, maybe eighteen and seventeen, are strong and lean, and look as though they know what they're about in the woods. They laugh some at their exertion then stop as their eyes fall on Beth. They hadn't expected to find her upon their return. It's been months since they've seen anyone new. They haven't seen a girl in longer.

As they study her, a dirty, battered-looking hairless waif, hollow and hungry, sunburned and wan, she looks back at them, dauntless and unblinking. Even now, as banged-up and road-weary as she is, Beth could make herself sparkle if she chose; with a flash of her laughing smile, the deepening of her charming dimples and a bright flutter of her river blue eyes she could be lovely, beneath the dirt and the sweat and the knife-shorn hair she could be winning; but Beth does none of these things. She watches, and she waits, and she measures their characters as well as she may in these first initial moments, and, just as importantly, scans the weapon so prominently slung across one of their shoulders.

Finally Beth breathes again.  _It isn't his. It isn't Daryl's._ It's smaller, doesn't have the right scope; there are countless things that make it not the missing Stryker that had been taken from them.

She doesn't know if it's a relief or a disappointment.  _Does the revelation leave she and Daryl any better off than they just were moments before these two's arrival? Are they worse off?_  There's no supportable connection here with the bandits – they do not have Daryl's bow, but then still his bow is gone, likely by now never to be retrieved. But now there is another crossbow – the first they've seen since Michonne brought the Stryker back from Morgan's stash. It is not Daryl's, but it is a crossbow.  _It's something … Maybe …_

"Who's this?" The one with the bow asks, undoubtedly feeling her ready eyes on him.

"'s Beth," Simon says with a nod. "Pete n' Mikey brought 'er in."

" _Or_ ," Peter amends weakly, his voice still scratchy and winded from his beating, "they brought me in."

"Pete—" the piercing eyed bowman exclaims when he gets a real look at his friend's face. "What the hell?"

Peter only brushes it off and plays it down, "Had a run-in in the brush." He means with the walkers. "Got her out of it, and another."

"Daryl," Beth speaks stoically; she finds Peter's recounting of the details light on the truth but generous on his part where he skips over the beating, and she likes him a little more for it, but though she'd adjusted to the boys in the camp, and though she'd known there were two more coming, still she's on edge with their arrival. It's a lot, all these new people after so long, and these two are all amped-up on adrenaline and carrying weapons. Now, though she'd felt safe all last night, and all this morning, with two more there, she's starting to feel outnumbered. Beth had thought it might have been easier to dissolve hers and Daryl's 'us' into their 'them', but one evening around a campfire and a morning of mundane chores does not solidify a unit.  _Family_  is created in strides and trials and losses and triumphs; these boys are a community of their own, a team, a family it clearly seems, and although Beth has been welcomed she has not been incorporated. She is on the outside, currently on her own. "He's asleep," she says, her voice heavy and inflexible. She can't quite identify this reaction she's having, she'd warmed to the others so easily the night before.

"Kept watch all night," Michael contributes on Daryl's absent behalf.

"Guess we h _a_ ve been gone a while," the one carrying a rabbit and a squirrel remarks with a light smirk. His accent is thick, and it isn't Georgian. Beth surmises this must be the one from Missouri. "Tom," he shares.

"Rob," the one with the bow says, greeting her with a bit of a lean in his eye. Beth nods; she withholds a smile.  _Too many changes. It's too many changes to keep up with – from the road to a camp, from abject nothingness to relative safety, from a world of two to a community of a few, and now more. Yesterday had demanded a lot of readjustments – a lazy morning to an abduction, followed closely by a brutal beating, a walker attack, a tentative truce, and finally a new home and promised relative-safety. Yesterday had been nothing but emotional upheaval from start to finish, and now more readjustments are being called for._  No one still living hasn't been forcibly accustomed to sudden changes, but still they take a toll. The boys drop their game from their shoulders. "Where's Jamesy?"

"North traps," Michael answers. Rob nods, and again looks at Beth.

"What took you all so long?" Simon asks while Michael moves in between to retrieve and sort the dropped gear.

"Saw some turkey tracks," the one called Tom recounts. "Followed 'em longer 'an we should've. Nicked two of 'em, but as you see— no bird."

"See a lot of 'em out there?" Peter, who hasn't moved at all all day, asks, not meaning the turkeys.

Rob shrugs, rifling through the camp for some easy-to-access food, "Not too many. We took some out, slipped past the rest." Once more his penetrating eyes land on Beth. "Good to have'ya. Hungry?"

"We had a breakfast," Michael says.

"Good." The one called Tom grins at him, "Feel like cleanin' dinner?" The two returned hunters drop to the ground and rest themselves, picking at what food they're given, leaning back and letting the climbing sun beam down on them.

Simon pulls his knife and gets to work on the rabbit, and, with no compelling reason to fear the two new additions, Beth makes herself useful and lowers herself to her knees beside the fifteen-year-old. Beth pulls her own knife, and skins and guts the squirrel with well-practiced skill.

Tom eyes her absently, "You done tha' be'fore."

Beth looks up from her mindless quick-handed work and looks at him. She nods, and wordlessly she returns to her work. She can't shake it – this feeling. It isn't fear, it isn't alarm, but she can't accept these boys as she had the others. Maybe it's because they're older, more able and athletic than most of the others, but they're all able, all capable, they wouldn't have made it this long if they weren't. She isn't afraid, she knows most likely they're fine – if they're linked with these others, who she'd passed the night with safely. These two'd shown concern for Peter's face, but hadn't reacted in rage; all that bodes well.

As she scrapes and cuts and tugs Beth realizes that in all the time she's honed her skills, her tracking, her hunting, her navigating – reading the road – she hasn't been reading people. Rick and the others had been the first group that stayed on the farm, and she hadn't had any part in that decision. She never actually saw, much less interacted with Randal. Every time the Governor came to their gates he was armed and deadly. The road bandits had presented themselves as dangerous from the start.  _Who has she ever had to read in this new world?_   _Michonne? Sasha and Tyreese? The survivors of Woodbury and the few people brought in from the road, already vetted by Rick, Daryl, or Glenn? Oscar? Axel? Merle Dixon?_ Beth moves her knife hand to her forehead to brush away stray hair with the back of her hand, only there is no hair to brush back, the gesture is one of habit she realizes, and not now of necessity.  _Maybe she does trust too easily..._   _How then, can she know?_  Daryl would advocate caution, but he too had vetted these boys and deemed them safe. Though they're strangers she suspects they're all right.  _She just has to get her head right… She's been looking for, hoping for, waiting for a group; she just has to get used to being in one again..._

 _It's the bow._  She knows it. First thinking it was Daryl's they had, thinking for a moment she and Daryl had placed themselves in an encampment of the bandits, thinking this whole place was a trap, or a ruse waiting to collapse on them, then realizing it wasn't Daryl's at all, and feeling the simultaneous relief and disappointment of that. It was a lot. She can't adjust herself that quickly, it's left her on edge. And on top of that, she cannot keep herself from letting her eyes drift jealously to the crossbow while she works. Her anxiousness is not from fear, nothing on this little island is making her feel off in that way; it's the being so close to what she wants. They'd been looking for something safe, all those days, all those miles, all those close escapes; she and Daryl had been looking for a place to settle, for decent people to surround themselves with – something close to a home, and after all that time since their ambush, all that heartsickness and despair, to find a bow, not Daryl's but a bow just the same — it's all too precarious, too in flux — so just what they'd wanted, but then not exactly.  _The group hadn't all exactly welcomed they're arrival, what if these two refuse to let them stay? They have no claim on the bow, she and Daryl; will they have to let it slip away?_  Beth is not afraid; she is anxious for surer footing. And as she cannot lay claim to the weapon then and there, and she cannot affect a change on whatever vision these two, Rob and Tom, have for their co-oped settlement, she does what she knows she can, and flays and carves the meat.

As Beth and Simon clean and butcher the game, Michael retrieves his shovel and returns to the digging. Rob looks up from his meal, eyeing the still-shallow hole, "What're we buildin'?" There had been no plans for new construction when he and Tom'd left the morning before.

For the first time Beth looks up and considers the hole that's being started. She'd taken it for granted this was something they'd had planned. Covertly she too looks at Michael, and he in turn gestures back to Beth.

"We're at capacity; another hut needs to be built."

"They're stayin'?" Rob doesn't ask this of Michael, he's looking at Peter.

Peter's battered face nods. "We all said so."

Beth straightens up, "That's for us? Daryl an' me?" Michael shrugs.

Michael, Simon, Peter, James in his absence, John in his slumber, they hadn't doubted there'd be no objection from the absent two, leastways they hadn't cared much if there would be— this hole is as formal an invitation to stay as can be made. Permanence, these days, and the sense of belonging to any physical place, comes, it seems, in the shape of a hole in the ground, oddly not unlike a widened grave. Still she is grateful for it. Beth leaves the flayed meat on a rock round the fire pit, wipes her blade, returns it to her belt and rises to cross to the dig site. She picks up the second shovel and wordlessly starts to dig. The others watch. Rob and Tom exchange looks, and Michael nods like he and Peter had known something all along when they'd come across her yestermorning, that she is a person of value, and a benefit to their tribe, then he drops his head and continues to dig.

The two of them, Michael and Beth fall into a rhythm of digging, one shovel striking the hard-packed riverbed silt, just as the other shifts backwards to dump upon a growing pile. Beth is glad for the work gloves Rob had handed her; her feet by now are calloused as hell, but her hands are still raw. _If Judith were there… her hands would still be soft to touch her, to touch that pink new baby skin…_ Beth digs. Beth can keep Maggie alive in her mind, this is not beyond her, but it's hard even for her to know that Judith made it out. And it hurts to think of her little ward... Mindlessly she digs. Her endless walking with Daryl after the prison had been its own sort of coping, of therapy; her body doesn't miss the miles this day, but thoughts, she's finding, creep in, when she isn't distracted enough to keep them out.

Daryl eventually wakes and ducks out of the borrowed hut to rejoin the others. He finds them stoking the fire and preparing fresh game. More onions are being cut, and with them some other sort of root. He spots two new faces, and Beth sweating some as she works with a shovel, digging with the kid they'd come back with, while the others cook and sit about. He strides up beside her and in a fluid motion pulls the shovel from her hands and drives it into the ground himself. He knows not for what he digs, but if they're to stay, him and Beth, he means to work; and he digs in and shovels the dirt behind him, over and over. Beth watches, catching her breath and wiping her brow, then moves to Michael to take his shovel; if this is to be her new home, her new bed, of sorts, with Daryl, their first place to call theirs since the prison, she will build it with him. It is their work to complete. She would have taken it on sooner had she known this was for them: A home, such as it is. Daryl shoots her a look, with so many others around she doesn't have to be doing this.

Beth digs in again, "It's ours," she tells him, glancing at the other huts to clarify her meaning, and she shovels out the loosened crumbling dirt. Daryl nods, and strikes the pointed blade into the earth; it's not his call to tell her what to do.

"You're, Darren?" Rob asks, nodding at the older, gnarled looking newcomer.

Daryl stops mid-dig and looks through his long-hanging greasy hair at the two near-eighteen-year-olds who hadn't been in camp the night before. "Daryl," he mutters. He sees the kid eyeing his split and swollen right hand, undoubtedly making the connection between it and the battered face of his friend. But Rob and Tom say nothing. Daryl wipes his brow, looks them over, then nods at them, "Thanks, for havin' us."

Tom shrugs, and smiles, "'ll take anyone who c'n take of themselves."

"Which, you two sure look like you can," Rob remarks dryly. "Look hard 'nough anyway." He nods at the both of them, "Been on the road?"

Daryl and Beth both look. They blink, and then each of them nods.

"Since the start?"

"No," Daryl's gruff voice rasps.

"Last winter," Beth says. "And the last couple months."

"Just the two of you?"

There's an indiscernible twitch in Daryl's expression. "We got, separated." His choice of wording is for Beth.

It's a small sentence, for their great loss, but its significance is well understood by their audience. The boys nod and turn back to their own business. Nothing of personal depth had been shared in those three words, but still the pain of loss is known by all, and though it was only brushed over, it feels as though these two newcomers, the girl and the biker, need a moment to themselves.

Beth and Daryl dig. The other boys talk some, catching each other up on all that transpired since the hunting trip. Rob takes a closer look at Peter's face. Simon works more on the food with the help of Tom. John, when he wakes, scrambles down the face of the steep ledge to the pool below, strips and jumps in. The river, Beth and Daryl both know, must be cold, but still it looks refreshing.

Daryl and Beth take a break, drop the shovels, cross to the stream, wet their hands and their faces, and take some sips of water. As Daryl lifts his head from the water his neck turns, and his eyes land on it. He sees it. A crossbow. It isn't his. It's smaller than his, but it's a crossbow. He eyes it, then his eyes find Beth's. She meets the look, she knows what he is thinking:  _Other than family, other than Rick, and Maggie, and all the rest, and safety, this is a thing they've been looking for most. A crossbow – silent, deadly, and with replenishable ammo._  Neither speaks a word about it though. Though Daryl's eyes study it covetously, they both bide their time, and take a long approach; for now they've found a place that will let them belong. For now that is enough.


	21. Chapter 21

Not drawn out over long quiet hours crossing long endless miles, the day passes them quickly. Beth and Daryl complete the dugout bottom of the their hut, but the roofed structure will have to wait for tomorrow. Killing rounds are made, as they are twice daily; pairs of two moving in stealth through the woods, taking down as many as they can, quiet, and easy. This stretch of the woods, as the boys had said, doesn't have many walkers, and they work vigilantly to keep it that way. They draw them away when they can, with a wide variance of tactics, kill them offsite from their camp — keep the corpses, the smell, and the traces of their occupancy out of sight, away from their base — but not all kills can be so orchestrated, and at times they still have to scramble to keep the upper hand; they are not safe entirely from close calls.

In the fading light James stands watch while the others eat, all but Peter who didn't make it through the day and dragged himself back to bed several hours earlier. They settle round the low burning fire and serve out the stew in the collection of mismatched mugs they keep in camp. Beth blows on the hot broth and reaches her thin fingers around the warm mug, letting its heat seep into her. She smiles, and sips, and watches the sun lower below the tree line. Beside her, somewhat removed from the circle around the fire, Daryl leans back against his pack, keeping to himself, quietly letting the conversations happen around him. In the time he's spent with this group Daryl's instinctual alarms have been appeased, he feels all right about them, but still he is resistant to fall in with them. This is not his family.

Daryl's getting used to them – these kids are smart, and they can take care of themselves, but none among them is Rick Grimes. There's no replacement for Glenn Rhee or Carol Peletier. They're friendly enough, for strangers. They plan ahead, they seem easy going, don't hold a grudge; they brought him and Beth into their camp, it's enough to earn them a tentative alliance, but they're not family. Nothing close. Daryl doesn't want to go it alone, keep it just Beth and him forever, he knows they can't sustain that without end, and he'll take the boys of this camp on as allies, but still he's only willing to give his full trust to Beth. In one form or another they've lived over a year together. Fought hunger, fought battles, fought degradation and despair together, killed hundreds of walkers. His joys have been her joys. Her father tended him when he was shot and pierced through. He rescued her sister. They'd lost the same homes, traveled the same roads, known the same fears and losses, and if all of that didn't make her family, slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, through all that, their parallel paths merged, and melded, and in the crucible that is the road, without a larger family about them, they were forged together, inextricably.

It is he and Beth, not he and Beth and these lost boys. Not yet, anyway. Trust has always come slowly to him, and now – all things as they are – it comes most unnaturally. All that comes innately in a person to ready them to connect – to have faith in people, was beat out of him and abandoned at an early age; it had taken a long time to feel one of the group from Atlanta, it hadn't been easily done. And afterwards, as newcomers were added, he had the judgment of others he relied on to help him — Rick, Glenn, Hershel, Carol. Having them helped the trust to come easier, even when he was out on the road bringing in groups and people on his own. But they're all gone now; now he has only Beth and himself. And now, when it comes down to it, other than himself, it feels like it's still just Beth he can trust. But still, something in him's allowing him to give this a chance. If that something is closer to caution or to trust he cannot yet say, but if he never trusts anyone again other than the girl at his side, how far will they get? It's for her sake he withholds his faith, but it is for her sake also that he must at some point let his guard down, and let that faith find a foothold again in something larger than themselves. They need a group. He knows they need a group.

Daryl slurps his stew, then wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes drift over the camp as the others talk, and at some point he speaks up, breaking his own settled silence, "How long it been this way? Jist you? No...?"

"'Grown ups'?" one of them finishes for him. The word sounds strange in the boy's mouth, they don't talk this way, they don't think this way anymore. It's been too long, too long with just them, and each of them has grown and aged. 'Grown up' 'adult' 'kid' 'boy' these are external words that long ago lost all meaning here. They are still sons, sons that no longer have parents, but they are not boys. Not in their eyes. Boys do not survive in the wild on their own, not for any sustainable length of time. Daryl nods, and he receives his stoic reply– "Early on."

"You been in these woods this whole time?" Beth asks.

"We dip into towns, the highways," Rob says with his mouth full of broth. "When we need to. Grab what we can."

"Buildings might be safer," James adds over his shoulder from where he stands watch at the creek bed, "but anything 'safe' someone else'll come along and claim."

Beth and Daryl know that story. It's become a universal truth. It pushed them onward every time their fatigued bodies demanded that they stop.  _When safety is all that everybody wants, how can any place be safe...?_

What's left of the stew is eaten, they drink water from canteens and pull their sweaters tighter. "This spot is good," Daryl remarks, "but walls 're better. Thick walls. Nothing'll keep the walkers out—" he means the camp "—if they come big e'nough an' fast enough."

A few back in the company bristle, they know their setup's limitations. They haven't suffered the losses they have carelessly. They've learned, and they've adapted, and they've made contingency plans and exercised forethought. These boys, most of them anyway, James Peter and Rob especially, were not unfamiliar with the woods before they came to them. Daryl Dixon is not the only Georgian son to know the land. This group is tactical and they don't welcome being condescended to.

Michael scratches at the back of his head, and looks at the older man with a bit of a boyish smirk, not insincere, but cognizant of their own errors in judgment, "We thought about livin' in trees," he waits as Daryl raises his brow in sardonic humor, watching the kid shake his head with a wry self-deprecating smile. "Didn't work."

" _Yeh_ ," Daryl scoffs dryly. "Wouldn't think so."

Here then the conversation splits and fractures, and turns to other things. Daryl digs into his food, keeps his head down, and listens to the falling night. Beth, her nerves calmed through the uneventful passing of the day, talks some and chats. Daryl takes a swig if water.

At some point John looks at them, nodding at Daryl and Beth, "Where're th' two of you headed?"

Beth doesn't answer, she looks to Daryl; this can be a touchy subject. When he doesn't respond she answers for them without further reference to him. "We're looking for our people." Daryl's dull eyes flash toward her. He hadn't expected her to say that. It's been months since they'd made any mention of looking for Rick and the group. But of course she has been. Of course Beth is looking, always looking, expecting to find them or some sign of them in the next town, or the next, around the next turn or the one after that. He looks also, or course he does, always keeping his eyes open, and Daryl hopes too, she isn't alone in this, he'll never stop looking for signs of their lost and fractured family, but he hadn't thought that's what she'd seen them  _doing_ all this time. He'd thought they'd been barely surviving. And while they still both look for patchwork signs that would piece together a family — a katana blade, a pocket watch, a sheriff's hat, riot gear, a knuckle-slotted Bowie knife, a gurgling baby girl, a Colt Python — he doesn't expect to find them, not the same way she does.

"We're headin' to the water," Simon says, the wistful glint of a smile lighting his boyish features, the youngness of the fifteen-year-old showing through here. "In time." This doesn't seem exactly like an actual mission so much as a ritual – something to talk about and think about, something to soak up the long hours of nothingness. "Get us a boat, float out to sea." Daryl scoffs unwittingly. The kid looks at him, "What?"

Daryl doesn't bother to mask his incredulity and skepticism, "You think that'll work."

" _Yeah_ ," the boy answers. "I do."

"How's that?" Daryl patronizes easily with his age and experience helping to find the kid amusing.

"No body-eaters for one," the fair-haired boy answers as though it should have been obvious.

"They can't swim?" Beth asks, curious. All eyes glance at her. "Do you know that, or are you j'st guessin'?"

"How could they swim?" Rob puts it to her.

"What'll you do for water?" Daryl asks evenly. "Can't drink seawater. It'll kill ya."

"So, we'll go to a lake," Mike says, taking up Simon's part in this.

Daryl could let it drop, but he doesn't. "Which lake? They gotta have boats. 's gotta be wide 'nough nuthin'll get at ya." He scratches at the scruff on his chin. "Guess you'd have to worry about pirates then. If you can get a boat guess someone else can too. And what about lightning? Can't be on a boat in a lake in a summer lightning storm."

Everything stops, all five guys look at him to see of he's for real. They look to Beth. With nothing else to say and nothing else to diffuse the moment, Tom chooses to smirk, "He always like this?"

...

With the others retired to their beds Daryl again stands watch. With his knife and a revolver, the night vision goggles left for him if he wants them, Daryl stands with his back to the camp, senses alert, waiting. Beth, who had refused to occupy a hut at the others' expense now with all returned to camp, sits wrapped in her blankets by the fire, watching the night with him until sleep takes her over.

Beth pokes at the fire, sunk down in it's pit, walled in by stones to keep it out of view; she speaks in a hushed whisper so as not to be heard by any who may still be awake, "You didn't have to talk to him that way, you didn't have to destroy their plan."

Daryl glances back at her. "That weren't no plan."

"Maybe not," Beth concedes. "But it was his dream. And it didn't cost you nothing to let him keep it."

Daryl shuffles his feet and eyes her across the dark strip of earth between them. "Dreams'll get you killed. I did him a favor."

Beth scoffs and shakes her head. "You didn't do that as a favor. You did that so he'd be as miserable as you are. You need to get some sleep Daryl."

"Hey," he whispers sharply at her, jerking his head in his direction, "come over here."

Beth looks at him, then gathers her blankets around her tighter and rises and crosses to him. When she reaches him she doesn't look at him, she climbs a stone and balances on it beside him, looking into the dark wilderness, waiting for him to speak. In time Daryl turns his head towards her, and looks at her. "You think I'm mis'rable?"

Beth hesitates to look at him, but her eyes do lift to him in time. "Daryl."

"Wh _ut_?"

Beth shakes her head. "Nothing." He's carrying too much, she sees it. He's taken too much on as his own, and it's keeping him on edge and perpetually cynical. It isn't his fault, and she knows he'll come around in time. She misses his smile though, that wicked boyish laugh. She misses sleeping beside him. She's glad to be where they are, but there's something in her that misses her life with just him, their secret quiet world of just them.


	22. Chapter 22

"Hey," Daryl whispers softly, leaning over her in the light of the early dawn, crawling into bed with her, leaning over her as she sleeps.

Beth stirs; she is warm, and her eyes flutter open slowly. She isn't awake enough yet to speak, but her lips form a smile and he tucks her into his brawny arms as he settles down beside her. He's watched the whole night, again, and his body is stiff and chilled and the touch of his clothes on her startles her further awake. Beth shifts and nestles into him, pulling one arm in around her. "Mmm," she breathes.

Daryl's exhausted. Entirely. His mind, his body, utterly fatigued. He misses Beth, misses lying with her through the night. He runs his hand over her hair, stroking her head. "You okay?" he breathes into her forehead. Beth nods mutely, awake, but not ready to speak. "You happy?" He doesn't know what made him phrase it that way, it's not a question he's prone to asking.

"Mm,hm." Her reply is less than audible, so tucked into to her curled body is it.

"Listen," he mutters, "ain't miserable. Y'got that wrong." Beth shifts, and stretches and takes hold Daryl's beard and holds him close while her mouth journeys to his own. He savors her sweet chaste kiss, and allows his tired limbs to sink into their underground bed and melt into hers. Above them the faintest light is breaking in the east, but the sky above them is still painted black. The stream runs steadily somewhere behind them, it's been a constant for them for days, weeks, the running of this Georgian river, steady, and babbling, unchanged through time; Beth thinks she never wants to be out of earshot of water again. Their legs entangle and while they still may, while the night surrounds them in cover, and none but Michael is standing on watch, they hold one another, closely, hands intertwining and running the lengths of each other's bodies. They're hardly apart at all during the day, almost always within each other's eyesight, except for when he finally catches a couple hours of sleep, and they touch in passing, sit side by side at meals, but they do not touch for extended periods of time, and after months together freely on their own, it is a loss to now be mindful of their contact. They venture no further than this, this gentle reconnecting through hands and palms, and soft whispers of lips. Daryl touches her where her worn jeans pull snuggly to her body, thinking of the last time he was with her in that way, just the other morning, just before all of this, only it seems so long ago now. The small of Beth's back arcs as she presses herself closer to him, and together in the early morning, before he drifts asleep and she wakes for the day, they linger in something close to slumber, their bodies warm tucked snugly beneath ground, their faces cool as the morning breeze rolls over them. "Miss you," she whispers so softly into his chest.

"Right here, Greene." He lifts the hand of hers he's got in his and brings it to his mouth. He kisses her hand, then bites at it a little. He's not too dark, not too far gone. He will make this place a home with her. He will smile and befriend the boys who brought them in, and he will come back out from under this cloud, and will start to see some good, and none of this he will do only for her. He will love her, and maybe, finally, they'll find some peace.

...

While Daryl sleeps Beth begins work on the shelter cover for their hut. Simon starts on it with her, using the branches, grass and twigs the boys collected yesterday in anticipation, and twine they have already in camp. If they can get more blankets Beth will consider lining the roof with their silver emergency blanket, but in the end it may still serve them better as a blanket — easy to grab and carry should they have to evacuate in a hurry.

The work is tedious, and difficult, and requires handiwork Beth is unaccustomed to, but slowly she makes some progress, weaving together a thatch siding for one half of the A-frame roof. She does not work alone. Simon helps, and Michael, and Rob and John throughout the day all lend a hand, sharing what tricks they themselves have acquired in the process of building and rebuilding the camp. James too helps at one point, with Peter when he makes it up. He is recovering, but slowly; his body aches incessantly and breathing still is a chore, labored and strained, as is his vision still from one eye, and his sense of smell, but rest is helping, and Peter's never been one to dwell long on the things that ail him.

They work and they talk. When Daryl rises and joins in the work goes faster. Stories are swapped – the lighter ones mostly, there is some laughter in camp today, and a sense of pieces settling into place. This day is easier; Beth's bright laugh is freer, Daryl's guard is consciously fully dropped, and he's able to see the group as what they are: This could be a bunch of Carls and Zachs. They could all be Carls and Zachs. They are not family – not yet – but they can be relied upon. If they'd meant them harm they would have acted by now, if there was something amiss he and Beth would have already picked up on some sense of it. The boys are generous, but neither crowding nor officious; they do not look at Beth in any kind of particular way – there is no leering or sidewise glances, and Daryl takes it all as he must: the time for caution above all else has passed. He has to make room for more.

Midday Daryl makes the sweep rounds with James moving south-west through the woods while Simon and Tom head north, and Rob and John go east. Michael hangs back in camp with Beth and Peter as she works ceaselessly to build her shelter.

She is glad for this work, frustrating and vexing and unsteady as it is. Though less mobile than hunting or sweeping it feels to her doubly vital, more important and strengthening. To create, to build up — even a thing as humble as this backwoods hut — is an act of bravery, maybe even defiance, and out of brush, and scraps, and reclaimed materials she is building herself and her love a home, reclaiming a place for them in this world. She is not so naïve to look at this place now with thought of  _forever_  but she has come to find enough comfort in thoughts of  _for now_  and  _maybe tomorrow._

She has come a long way since her family's generational farmhouse of 160 years, her own spacious sunny room she'd had as hers since she was born. But somehow digging a bed out of earth and making a roof of branches does not feel to her too unrecognizable; it feels essential, and manageable. And if the world at large reached some kind of critical mass that it no longer could sustain itself as it was – too big, too complex, too overreaching, as it seems to her it must have – maybe this is a new life that can be lived — small, and unassuming, and stripped down. She no longer misses the luxuries of her old life, nor even those at the prison; all Beth has room to long for is her missing family, absent in body but not in thoughts and prayers.

 _Yes_ , sometimes, when she isn't too tired, and other times when she's past exhaustion, a prayer will whisper itself through her spirit. Sometimes she does still pray, after all of it, all she's seen, and all they've lost, the old words still come, and she holds on as best she can, feeling her father in those moments, her mother, Shaun, Patricia, and all the others cruelly taken, cut down or devoured, and she does not let go until something more immediate presses on her, urging her to action and forcing her back into the present. More time passes now between prayers than once it did, but still, even now, two years and more into this hell, miles and miles journeyed from where she'd started, weighed down with losses upon losses, Beth can still feel the words of the old psalms, and they fall on her heart's ears in her father's gentle voice. This will be her home, for now, and it will be enough, enough for her and enough for Daryl, who never needed anything other than to belong. This tethered roof will shield them from the elements as best it can, and it will revive them to keep on fighting, as best they can.

Michael clambers down the ledge and moves downstream to relive himself while Beth and Peter, who's breathing is coming easier, the swelling of his face having gone down some, though still his face amounts to not much more than one expressive eye amidst cut and battered flesh, work on. "It's not working," he says, without glancing up from his slow practiced work.

"What isn't?" From the offhanded way he'd made the remark he hadn't said it about the thatching.

"Your tryin' to look like a boy," he says flatly. "Spotted you for a girl the first second I saw you."

Beth's eyes rise from her work to him, there's something solemn in her expression when she does. "I wasn't trying to pass as a boy."

"No?" He looks at her through his hooded droopy purplish-green eye, red in some places, yellowing in blotches in others. "That haircut an offensive tactic?" he asks in answer. "It keep you free from the ghouls' grasp or is that your war paint?"

Beth looks at him, then returns to her work. "Something like that."

"Sum'in' like which?"

Her head shakes, she doesn't want to occupy this headspace, she does not choose to dwell on these memories. "It's just hair." She binds more brush and wood together. "It doesn't matter."

Peter looks at her, his hands stopping work completely. "It was long, wasn't it? Lighter blonde at the ends? Maybe a little curly? I'm right?" Beth makes no answer at all, spoken or otherwise, but Peter's confident in his supposition, as Peter is confidant in all things. He blinks, and studies the poor showing that is what's left of her hair. He nods his head imperceptibly toward the woods, "He do it?"

"No." Her head shakes softly and mutely, and her eyes never lift to find him.  _No, Daryl did not do this._ Daryl, she suspects, still feels pangs of regret and helplessness and rage when he sometimes looks at her still unaccustomed to the change. _What she lost doesn't matter; Daryl lost his crossbow._

Returned, Michael takes up his place again, dumping down more branches and grasses and weeds he'd pulled on his way, paying no notice to the singular way in which Peter is studying Beth, possibly because his expression is indiscernible given the bruising and the swelling. "… I can't figure you out. 'Beth Greene'," Peter says in rumination, in response to which Michael glances up and also looks at her. "... Your look 's super hard, but you laugh like someone's baby sister."

Michael sees what Peter's getting at and adds to the account, "You kill – whudd'a you call 'em? Walkers? – with precision—"

"You've got the face an' personality of some sort of an angel, and you walk around tough as shit, like you're not afraid of nothin'."

Michael's big boyish eyes look at her, blinking like they do, like he never really fully sees a thing or knows it for what it is the first or second time he sees it; although at eighteen he's tied as one of the oldest in the camp, topped only by James who by now is nineteen or older, Michael will carry the features of boyhood with him for years (provided, he gets those years). "When we—" he glances at Peter to include him in this as well "—saw you that morning, we thought –" He doesn't finish, it already seems so long ago now, but a sliver of a smile anchors his broad youthful face and he says to her, with a bit of relish, "Didn't think you'd be such a badass by the first looks of you."

This assessment fits poorly with her vision of herself. Those words just spoken, do not describe her. "Same as any of you," she says of herself, not troubling to look up.

Neither of her companions can come up with any sort of response to this. Peter wheezes, and ties another knot. Michael single-mindedly breaks apart branches as Beth ties off a tight double knot.

"Lemme ask one thing—" Peter speaks, prompting Michael to lift his head, and this time Beth does look up as well. "You love him?" Michael's a little jostled by the candor of his friend, but Beth doesn't seem to be; she blinks earnestly, and nods. "This isn't one of those end-of-the-world-survival-arrangement things?" Peter asks her. "Just thought it would be best to ask, in case it was, and there's no one left around to ask."

Brows raised, Michael looks first at Peter, then at Beth, realizing maybe without knowing it he'd been wondering this also.

Beth does not waver. "Is that what it looks like?" She'd never cared to bother to consider what it may or may not look like from the outside, so certain of it is she from the inside.

Peter thinks, about the fury that had propelled Daryl's fist repeatedly into his face, he thinks how his eyes are always on her, how they're never far apart for long, the way she looks at him, how they linger beside one another, their occasional touches, and the disparities in both age and dispositions. He thinks about how she and her companion seem to communicate without words, about how he seems perpetually angry, and she is so, not. Michael thinks about how they don't seem to make decisions without checking in, and how he saw them fight in formation, almost in mirrored unison. He thinks about how the world has changed; he, for example, is only eighteen but he's been one of the oldest people he knows for over a year, and some things that maybe used to matter probably more than don't now. Neither Michael nor Peter know just what to make of this coupling, though they can't deny it does seem to them to work; Peter though doesn't let the matter drop just there yet. Through his destroyed face he looks at her, "If you had parents still around, would they be okay with it?" The question doesn't come from a predictable place, it isn't wrapped in his own judgements and conclusions, he's asking for her, so that she can be asked, in case she's been needing to be and there's been no one there to do it.

Beth looks at him with utter assurance. "Yes."

He nods, and the matter is dropped. "Never bring it up again."


	23. Chapter 23

It took another day to complete the other half of the roof and to tie it together in a structure sturdy enough to stand, but by the fourth night in camp a starter hut is constructed and by that time also Daryl's ready to surrender the night watch. Inside their tethered home is a bedroll of blankets, their feeble packs stashed at their heads, and the beginning of a shelf Beth is starting to dig out. The roof is too low for standing, only James' and Peter's is dug near deep enough for standing, and that was a long process not worth repeating. As it is though they can kneel and still have head clearance above them – they can sit upright and be comfortable. Work remains to be done, there is the tunnel to dig to the fire pit, but the boys have all attested that is a slow endeavor, and the nights are still running warm to mild so they've got time there. Eventually they'll need to fortify the roof with scrap wood plastics or metals, and they'll have to weatherproof it and line it, and dig a rain trench around it, but they've got a space of their own, and in it a bed.

And Daryl isn't letting another night pass with her going to it alone. They are silent, when they make love. Tom and John are standing watch several yards off, the others in their beds may be asleep or may not be, and Daryl's mouth finds hers, moving towards her soft and hungry and measured. He holds her head so tenderly in his hands and Beth wraps herself around him impassioned and in love. Her top layers come off quickly and his are quick to follow. Their tongues dance, their breaths quicken and the world around them fades to blackness as they zero in on one another in secret furtive motions in the dark.

Daryl's mouth travels in silence from her lips down her body to her chest as Beth works quickly to wriggle out of her jeans. With a strong tug Daryl helps her out of them and his eyes stop, and his breath stops – he hasn't seen her body in full in so long. Not since the house, when he'd made love to her so deliciously before everything went to shit and they were held at gunpoint and robbed and left for dead. But he isn't thinking of that bleak aftermath now; in this moment those dark thoughts are so far from his head as he looks at her in the night shadows, pale and slight, and perfect. In the stillness of this charged interlude, breathless with immediate anticipation, Beth watches his eyes on her and it feels as though he's already touching her. But not enough. So not near enough. Daryl wets his lips and his eyes blink beneath his set brow, her breasts call to him, as does the space between her thighs, and all she can think about is the weight of his body on top of hers, the rich touch of his warmth, the fierce flexing of his muscles, and the urgency of their mutual longing.

Two pairs of hands reach for his buckles at the same time and in a hurry his belt is undone and his trousers tugged down and then her legs wrap round him, pulling him to her and feverishly he follows, taking back his love in swift fervent muted thrusts— Their relief comes quickly, in frenzied silent constrictions and releases. Beth's blushed lips open in a sudden soundless gasp of completion, her fingertips squeezing him tighter as Daryl's stifled grunt is muffled into the graceful bend of her arcing throat.

Though all Beth wants is to hold him there to her, feeling connected and loved and warmly content, still aroused and deeply bound to him, Daryl does tear himself away, though he couldn't be certain he'd exerted his self restraint quite as soon as he should have, so quickly and intensely had pleasure come to him. Beth watches his chest heave slowly in and out as she lies there, working too to catch her own breath. Beside him she rises and sits up also and holds her naked body against his back, letting the slow inhales and exhales of his body slow and pace hers in time. She listens to him breathe; through the warm ringing in his ears he listens to the creek, and the crickets, and the muffled sound of adolescent voices. Beth does not release him. Their bodies are heated and sticky but as their passion dissipates into contentment the night air seeps in and their flesh grows cold and bumpy in the chill.

It's impossible to think of how he got here, a young girl pressing herself against his bare scarred back, but she is and he has no thought in him to recoil or to hide, or to do anything but savor the pleasure of her skin against his, her breath on his shoulder, her small hands reaching round to his chest, no doubt feeling the incessant beating of his heart.

His hand wiped clean Daryl holds her hand to him and bends his chin down on it. Breathing slowly he kisses her. "Love you. Y'don't know how much."

Behind him still Beth's embrace squeezes tighter. She presses her lips to the nape of his neck and speaks into him, so that only he can hear, " _Me too_." She kisses him. " _Me too_." And she kisses him again. " _Me too_." Once more her lips press against his skin and then he twists round into her, pulling her into his arms, lowering her back into their bed as he supports himself over her, melding with her in long deep kisses, nuzzling his face into her neck and her warmth.

" _Beth_." His voice is horse and hushed, and meant only for her. She loves the sound of her name on his tongue, no one's ever made her feel so strong, so herself, so critical as when Daryl Dixon says her name. He says so much to her in that one syllable; he speaks her name and so much is understood between them. She wonders if her own words fail, to say all that she means them to, but words have never been all that binds her to him, or him to her, and so she does not linger on the thought but holds him tighter, kisses and nibbles at his ear, and strokes his long hair away from his much loved face. Their eyes meet in the darkness, hers blue like a river, his deeper like the sea, and then she smiles at him, her dimples and eyes creasing in her genuine delight in him, and he kisses her charming nose, and for good measure her forehead, and brushes his thumbs gently over her face, then her body shivers and he frees her to dress and Daryl himself pulls up and refastens his pants and pulls on his layers of shirts.

Dressed again they settle together in their bedroll and pull close their blankets over them. Beth is growing tired of her jeans, and weary of being filthy. She wants a change of clothes, she wants these clothes to be washed, she wants something cozier against her skin for times like these, sweatpants maybe, not denim crusted stiff with sweat and dirt and blood. They'll need more clothes, and blankets to be sure. What they have now will see them through some time longer, but it doesn't help each day to wake tensed and aching from the cold each night, and it will not stay this warm forever, the seasons are already shifting.

In his arms Beth does not fall asleep this night thinking of Maggie, or her father, or the others who are lost. She curls into Daryl and thinks only of him, and the improvements to be made on their little scavenged home, the supplies they need and the runs they will make. Beth is happy when her eyes fall shut, hopeful and ready to work. Daryl keeps her close tucked in his arms, and sleeps, finally soundly.


	24. Chapter 24

"Up more!" James calls down from the ledge.

The midday sun rises above their heads as they labor to further fortify the camp. Below the shelf's drop down from the island, Daryl, John, Tom, Rob and Michael work positioning chopped-down tree trunks into the ground as sharpened angled pikes. Smaller versions of these have already been installed on the higher ground on the other side of the riverbank, keeping walkers or any other mobile thing from stumbling into or charging camp. Muscles strained they reposition the angle of the weaponized post and drive it in securely, hammering at it with a rubber mallet Tom had pilfered on a run a year back when they'd started most of the camp's construction. The posts are erected to slow and stave off the living and pierce through any on-comers without the ability to reason and navigate.

Next will come the trenches, more of them. Spread throughout the woods, meant to stop anything moving through the trees without care. The more they are shown Beth and Daryl see James, Peter and the rest have spent the last two years transforming the wilderness around them into a complex network of hidden weapons, hidden supplies, hidden escapes, and camouflaged traps. There are pits in the woods dug and covered to trap walkers, there are snare traps for animals, and others for walkers. There are transplanted gardens of wild edibles, others of plants they scavenged from the towns, from farms, and there are woven basket funnels used for fish traps both above and below the fall. James and Peter both were Eagle Scouts, Simon too had been a scout, and Tom came from a long tradition of hunters in his family, he was raised in the woods. They used and applied their skills and knowledge well. There are trip lines and alarm lines; there are marked trees with nails driven in making them easy to climb in an ambush. There are places in the brush at far off distances to leave messages should they get separated. Miles out in all directions there are wind chimes hung to attract the dead to them, away from the camp. Their defenses are far from advanced, and not plentiful, but they are well thought out, calculated and proving effective, so far, when happened upon.

Seated on a rock in camp Beth wipes her brow. She'd been down there, helping with the others till she'd stumbled and fallen to the ground. Daryl'd turned back and reached down and lifted her to her feet by the elbow. "Y'a'r _i_ ght?" he'd asked, looking at her, studying her face. Beth had nodded. But as his eyes darted across her face in inspection he'd seen she was both pale and flushed, perspiration wetting her face, and her eyes were distant and unfocussed. "Beth," he'd said lower, his brow furrowing, "what's th' matter?" She was dizzy, that's what he saw, maybe almost fainted, he can't know, he didn't see, only heard her fall. "You're hungry," he'd said. Beth had shook her head. "Eat something."

"I'm fine."

Daryl had taken her by the arm and pushed her up the slope, back up to camp. "Drink something," he'd said, the only 'something' available of course being water. "It's hot." He himself had wiped his brow as evidence, brushing back his sweat-pieced hair out of his eyes with the crook of his arm. "You're not drinking e'nough."

Daryl saw her seated then returned to work. He picked up the log, shouldered the weight and dug in. He tells himself, leaning into his labor,  _It's malnutrition, dehydration. Beth is not getting sick._  She survived the infection and fevers of the prison, in his mind she will not get sick now.  _She is only overheated, over tired._

Beth now watches as the work continues, and she drinks water from a canteen, noting as she does it must be in need of a wash, or have been left out in the sun too long as the water tastes funny somehow, tinny, or bitterly sour. Still she drinks, then stokes and tends the fire, sets water to boil and uses her knife to chop the roots they'll boil and mash for their evening meal. After some rest, and some water, Beth recovers, though Daryl holds his hands to her head, her cheeks several times as the hours pass, checking for a fever. She isn't warm, not so much that he can tell, but still her color's off, and her hairline and temples have not dried. Beth shrugs him off. She's fine.

In the coming days they build more defenses, dig more trenches, set more traps. They are diligent in their work, conscientious in every defense they make, every plan they orchestrate, every trip line they set, but it is not all work in the life they lead. With the gardens and the scavenging, the hunting, the snares and the fish traps, they eat all right, they do not go hungry, and fresh water is readily available. They make rounds daily, but there is time to kill between, and there is swimming, and cards, and books to occupy their time.

After dinner one night Daryl watches from the corner of his eye as John pulls out a pipe, packs it loosely, and pulls a twig from the fire to light it with. He inhales, and Daryl immediately recognizes the pungent smell. His brow arches and he looks over at him with a smirk, "Fr'  _real_?" He scoffs. Even Beth recognizes the smell; though she never partook, she'd sit with her friends while they blazed. John takes another drag then passes the old black-curved pipe off to his cousin. James takes a deep hit, drawing hard on the pipe, then and offers it to Daryl, telling him as he chokes down his smoke, "Found the plants in the back fields of a farm." He exhales, "Transplanted a couple; dry the leaves for a rainy day." His meaning isn't the weather.

Daryl shakes his head at the offer; God knows he's smoked a lot in his time, but getting high in a place like this doesn't exactly square with him. He nods his head toward Beth with something like a smirk, "Give it t' her; she's big on tryin' new things."

James lifts a brow at her and passes it over. She in turn looks to Daryl, not exactly for permission — he's never actually been her chaperone — but if he's abstaining she wants to know he thinks it'd be safe for her to try it — she doesn't know what to expect — and that he won't be cross if she does. Daryl shrugs, and squints a wry smile at her. "Go easy," he tells her, chewing on a twig. "Keep yer head."

Beth's large pretty eyes blink and she takes the pipe, "Hold up," James tells her. He relights the twig in the flames, holds it over the bowl for her, and as the contents light and burn and singe he instructs her, "Now, suck it in." She does.

Daryl watches. He blinks from across the fire. "Hold it in," he grunts. "Not in the back o' your throat, down in your lungs." Beth does what he tells her, or tries, her eyes staying on him, then she chokes and coughs, and the grey skunky smoke billows out. Daryl chuckles outright, his eyes crinkling in amusement and several of the others join in. Daryl tosses a pebble at her, "Y'like it?"

The night passes on, several of them get stoned, all stay up and talk, watching the fire burn, feeding it higher than they usually do. Peter, well enough now, stands watch, listening to the voices, but keeping his eyes trained on the trees, dropping the night goggles down to his eyes every now and then.

Scraps of stories are swapped and told, good ones and bad. Beth tells about the Governor finally, Daryl watching stoically as she does. All mentions of Hershel's demise are omitted from the telling, it's still too soon and raw to tell strangers, to tell anyone who didn't know and love the old veterinarian and farmer. Heads nod as her words come, though none there had come across evil so vicious, so unfeeling as is recounted in this story. They do not linger on it long. By necessity the conversation drifts and changes.

Daryl uses a rock to sharpen his and Beth's knives as he sits, and he watches, head ducked, eyes lowered, as Rob fools with the cams in the crossbow. Daryl's face twitches, then he clears his throat, looks up and speaks, "What kind of draw you go on that?"

"Huh?" Rob looks at him.

Daryl rubs his mouth and lets his hand drop to his jaw where he rubs at and tugs on the scruff of his chin, his eyes focused as he looks. "How's it pull? What's the draw speed? How's its aim?'

The kid looks at Daryl, eyeing him. "… It's all right."

"It yours?"

"I'm the one holding it."

Daryl's mangy head shakes, "B'fore."

Rob eyes Daryl again. "No." He looks down at it, pulling back on the unloaded trigger a couple of times. "Found it in a truck." He looks at Daryl, "Asked all you've got?"

Daryl nods impassively, letting it go for the time. Then he adds, "Gotta keep it oiled. And tighten the bolts." He bites his thumb. "Motor oil'll work, if ya can't g't nuthin' else."

James nods at Daryl, "You know these?"

Daryl nods cagily. "Some." His expression twitches imperceptibly. "Should keep it loaded and nocked," he mumbles.

Later, when Daryl rises to retire he holds out his arm and beckons underhanded with his fingers to Beth. "Com'on, Willie Nelson."

Beth smiles her 'goodnights' and rises and crosses to him; he nods a 'goodnight', stands back letting her by, then walks with her to their hut, brushing his hand lightly against the small of her back as he does.

Before they reach their rag-curtained doorway he grunts, "Y'gotta?"

Beth nods and they stop and cross down to the ledge by where the creek bends and drops. Keeping their footing steady as they scale the steep grade they then walk past the pool and down river several paces.

Daryl's got her knife tucked in the back of his waistband and is flipping and twisting and catching his own as he waits, leaning back against a tree keeping his eyes moving and askance as Beth squats on the bank. When she's done he passes her knife back to her, holds his own between his teeth, and undoes his fly.

Waiting, Beth runs her fingers in the cold water, letting her fingers just hang suspended, propelled forward by the constant flow of water.

"Hey," his voice rumbles as he zips, "you stoned?"

Beth keeps her eyes on the black water and shakes her head slowly, rhythmically back and forth, "I don't know."

"Y'like it?" Beth doesn't answer. She lets the current drag her hand forward as her body keeps her in place. "Listen," he says, scratching his jaw, "don't get used to it. 's no good gettin' wasted sittin' around."

Beth's answer comes out soft and warm and low, like honey dribbled slowly on a warm day, "I'h don' even know I'h 'm."

Daryl smirks to himself, then crouches down beside her. Behind them in the darkness they hear the conversation of the boys and the popping and crackling of the fire. Daryl leans over and presses a light kiss against her shoulder, then rests his chin on her, watching her profile as she watches the water. "You al'right?" She nods. "F'r real? Y'ain't dizzy, no headache? Fever?" He's not so worried about the drugs as he his about her heat exhaustion a few days back.

"… Ih'm f _i'h_ ne…" He blinks, liking the way her Southern drawl gets a little lazier when she's tired or thinking on something.

"You're cute."

Beth tilts her head back against Daryl's for a quiet moment, then leans forward, scoops both hands into the water and lets the water splash against her face and scalp. Daryl moves back to avoid the bath. He scoops up a handful of river rocks and chucks them lazily, one by one, into the stream as she runs her wet fingers over her head. Her eyes lift up into the blackness, up to the stars. There are so many. Closer ones, bigger and brighter, and smaller ones, burning a little dimmer, a little warmer, more yellow, and tiny ones, glowing so small they disappear and reappear between the flutterings of eyelids.

Daryl reaches out and runs his hand over her head, over her forehead and back over the length of her skull. His hand lingers at the nape of her neck, rubbing at her soft tanned skin when she sort of scoffs. "Whut?"

"You know what—" she says with a half-released little effect near a laugh "—I used to love?" Beth lifts a rock herself and chucks it into the gurgling ripples. "Haircuts."

A scoffed half smirk emits wryly from Daryl's lips in spite of himself, then his expression creases and folds and he scolds her, his tone darkening, "Beth, it isn't a joke."

The graveness in his voice cannot be ignored, but still she feigns naiveté, "It isn't?"

Then everything stops. They'd put this behind them, put that night behind them, stopped talking about it because it didn't help, and changed nothing, and only put an edge of separation between them, and they both know the past is not to be lingered on, and in the scheme of all that's happened to them, that night doesn't rate as worst, so dwelling on it is moot, but now Daryl stops. He admires Beth's fortitude and resilience, but to a point. He turns her chin round toward him so he can really meet her eyes. His gaze is heavy and unflinching beneath his furrowed brow and grim long-hanging hair, "It wasn't a joke to them. It wasn't just hair. They were terr'izing you. Us."

Beth's voice is plain and quiet and unmoved when she answers him, "But it's just hair Daryl."

"Tell that to the SS," he mutters.

She's been distant there beside the river but his words take her aback. Beth's large pretty eyes flash on him quietly. "The SS didn't stop at hair."

Daryl looks at her, and breathes, letting his body exhale, and then his hand raises to her cheek and he touches her lightly, fondly, like she's a deer that might up and bolt away if he handles her too forcefully. "No one stops at all anymore. Beth, that's the problem."

The girl looks at him, holding his lined scruffy face in her solemn gaze — he can't tell if she's lit — then she kisses him.

Daryl wasn't looking to be kissed, not in this moment, not after these words, but Beth is finished talking, and she wants his lips on hers, and spent from fighting too many things day in and day out — walkers, hunger, the elements, despair — he isn't up to fighting her. He lets himself sit back and enjoy the view of Beth gently positioning herself over him. He's not sure what made him try to tell Beth Greene the score, he knows she knows it, has been living it, right along with him, and if she doesn't want to dwell on it, and would rather enjoy her high and spend time with him, he figures he'll let her have her way. He tilts his head toward his girl, kissing her willingly, holding her thin strong back in his hands, thankful for her, her health and their time together…

Somewhere in the darkness there's a rustling. Daryl listens — it's not coming from camp. He and Beth stop. Silently he pushes her off and rises to his feet, squinting into the distance through the trees. He pulls his knife, handles it loosely in his grip, and waits. When the shuffling creature emerges Daryl sets his feet, reaches back and hurls the blade through the air, striking it right in the crest of its brow. Without a word he reaches out for Beth's knife and with it in hand, standing in front of her, waits to see if there are any more. A minute passes, another one, and nothing stirs. Daryl turns, presses his palm to her waist to position her back toward camp and whistles back to the others. " _Pete—_ " he hisses. Peter, John and Tom appear above them in the near distance. Daryl's two fingers signal for the goggles, which Peter drops down to his nose. " _Cover me."_

Peter nods and draws his knife, as does Michael, and Tom disappears and reappears with the crossbow. Beth's knife in hand Daryl steps into the cold water, wades through the current and crosses to the other bank to the edge of the woods where the walker dropped. Daryl steps his foot on the decaying chest, leans down to determine the kill has been made, then satisfied extracts his knife. Daryl wipes his blade clean, tucks Beth's in his waistband and his in his belt and drags the rotting festering thing back into the woods. Not too far, but far enough, all the while Beth waits for him across the water and the three boys peer after him from above.

Daryl returns shortly, having taken down one more stray walker lurking in the brush, wades back, washes his hands and face in the icy water, then straightens up and tugs Beth alongside him. "Com'on. Head back."

He helps her up the incline and Michael's there with his hand outstretched waiting to pull her up. She reaches up and the boy grasps her hand to support her as she climbs; Daryl follows behind, assisted in the cresting with the hand reached out to him by Tom.

"Ev'rything clear?"

Daryl nods at Peter and turns back to woods looking. "Only two. Slow moving." Peter nods. "Take watch with you though," Daryl says, rubbing at his jaw. "First night seen 'em this close to camp." He turns and takes up Beth's hand, tugging her near then takes her face his hand. "Get some rest." He presses his lips to her forehead then releases her. She steps away but he whistles at her before she takes more than a few steps; she stops and he hands her back her knife. "Sleep well."

Not missed on her how uncomfortable he'll be standing all night in his wet boots and trousers, Beth takes the knife and nods. "G'night."

" _Hey!_ "

Daryl turns round at Peter's alert and when he squints he too sees the cause for alarm. Below, again on the opposite side of the stream, close to where the first had emerged, a dark figure lumbers toward the water. On instinct, without hesitation Daryl moves into action, grasping the crossbow from Tom's hands; Daryl raises it with precision fires and strikes. Where the walker had been there is still muted snarling movement — there had been two there, not one. In fluid rote motion he pulls a second bolt from the quiver, reloads, steps into the stirrup, nocks the bow, aims and fires.

Tom, Michael, Peter, they all stop and look. Daryl's breathing hard. He'd acted with such focused ease, his arms, his whole body moved with efficient muscle memory, not one unnecessary movement had been exerted. They'd suspected he was handy, they'd seen him wield a knife, but that display in front of them was something else. They're all efficient in dispatching walkers, if not skilled, but what they just saw was a level of mastery they have not seen.

" _Woah…_ " Michael whispers. Daryl's shoulders rise and fall as his breath regulates.

All wait, watch, look, listen. The night is still. There is nothing more. Five minutes, ten minutes pass, and nothing. When nothing more happens their backs lower, their chests loosen, their heart rates steady, and in minutes more they turn back to the center of camp and the fire and their beds.

The camp settles in, Simon tosses dirt on the flames to dampen them some, and the others, all for Peter and Daryl, duck in to their shelters, armed of course, and lie down to sleep if they can, ready to wake and rise quickly should the call come. Everyone in camp sleeps with boots on this night.

Before shutting her eyes Beth ensures both hers and Daryl's packs are packed and sealed and ready for a quick grab, should events take a turn and they need to run. Following the boys' example she daily checks both their bags have a two day supply of dried food – replacing it each day as she uses what's packed as their midday meal. When she's satisfied she settles in, and lying back feels her head sink heavily into her pack. There is a slow spinning of the world that meets her there, but whether from the smoke or something else she cannot be certain.

In the quiet Daryl and Peter stand looking, waiting. After those four kills Daryl is alive with adrenaline and pent-up energy. He stays light on his feet, ready to act, but no further call for action comes. His fingers twitch. It is not only the walkers that have got him on edge — this is the first he's been left with Peter on their own, and there are words between them that have gone unspoken, probably for too long.

"Sorry," he mutters stiffly, into the night, not  _to_  Peter. "'Bout your face." He isn't sorry actually — he'd do it again, rightly; there's no room for that kind of remorse or second-guessing anymore. He isn't interested in apologizing for or curbing his survival instincts to placate relative strangers, still though, he figures some shreds of old world sociability must still linger in him, and some sort of thing must be said and acknowledged between them two if they are to continue on in this camp as a whole, cohesive group. "'s just—" Daryl grips the bow, nothing feeling so at home in his hands as this "—you don't know." His voice is rough and low. "Young, pretty girl on the road? You don't know." Daryl's arms flex and strain even at the memory, "You grabbed her."

"I get it." Peter listens, then glances – his face still bruised and cut – at the bowman. He does get it, he understands Daryl's reaction that day, but he listens to the words this man speaks and Peter tries to picture how Beth might have looked before all this, that her companion and friend would see her as he does and not as she is, indeed stalwart and fierce, formidable in both her earnestness and intention of purpose. In her smile and her laugh and her quiet acts of kindness he can well imagine who she once might have been; only, it's not that girl in camp with them. The change must have been slow, and necessary for the man not to really see it in her, he treats her so tenderly, like she is fragile, like she is innocent, and still untouched by the losses of this world. And Peter wonders if the man still truly sees her this way, or if it is an act of kindness to make as though he does. _And is this kindness for her benefit or for his?_

There's an owl hoot, somewhere, solitary and haunting.

"The thing about Beth is," Daryl says, disrupting the stillness and taking a pause for meaning before continuing, "people are gonna misjudge her; because she's small, and blonde, an' she smiles." There's a space, and it seems as though Daryl'll stop there, but he does not. His gruff voice breaks the silence that had settled in the interim— "They'd be wr _o_ ng. Beth knows how to be strong; an' she don't back down."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd thought about using 'Bob Marley' or 'Bob Dylan' as Daryl's stoner reference, but I stuck with country... Thanks to all the readers and all the regular reviewers(!), and especially to leobrat for working with me so thoughtfully on some future chapter beta-ing, and to Regina who just also so generously offered to help (I so appreciate it and will get back to you soon, it's been busy!)


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter doesn't read terribly smoothly I apologize. Yesterday I thought I had it, then I reread it and re-pieced it, and now I'm feeling a little blind when I look at it, and a little resigned that I can't get it better. (Maybe I'm just being lazy and submit-happy.) No doubt I'll get home from work tonight and want to revise it totally :/

The night passed them without further event. In the later hours Peter roused Tom to relieve him; in turn Daryl could have woken either Simon or Michael - both of whom had abstained - to replace him, but he stayed on, feeling it better, with evidence of walkers so close, to stand watch himself. With night vision goggles and a crossbow, heavy and deadly in his hands once more, he watched the night, looking for the herd he hoped those four walkers were not an early sign of. Should they come, moving in en masse, the camp stood a good chance, positioned well to survive, or at the very least to stall for time for a clear exit. The walkers he'd taken down had all been moving east, coming in on the lower ground; with a river between them and trip lines as well, the camp'd be in fair shape with the advantage on their side. Far better than if there was an advance from the north-east, on the high ground. There too though there are trip wires, and sharpened palisade pikes, and the river also. The camp all around is well fortified, but given all that the land is still even on its east border, and thus does not barricade them the same as the dropped shelf of land does below. If ever a herd big enough comes through, the throngs would be enough to push across to the strip of island land. Given a choice, Daryl would choose the circumstances they're in— an attack from the west.

But it never came to that. When he retired to bed as the first rays of day broke out above the trees in the east, no herd had come. Nothing had moved in the night but a ground mouse, which he'd let scurry past, and a saw-whet owl, which he shot down with ease with the aid of the night vision.

Beth stirs some when he moves in beside her. Her head is heavy, and her stomach unsettled. She'd slept soundly but now roused she feels queasy and closes her eyes again and breathes. She hadn't thought the smoking had had much effect on her, but she feels it now — a strange sick feeling in her stomach, a cloudy floating headache and the sweats. Beth pushes herself up—

"Shhh," Daryl mutters, needlessly trying to settle her, already more than half asleep himself. "Ev'rythin's quiet…" he exhales into heavy sleep.

Beth drinks from her canteen, still it tastes funny to her, she'll remember to fill a mug from now and bring it with her to bed, only relying on the canteen when they're on the move in the woods. She thinks about rising and getting something into her stomach, or even just reaching into her pack beneath her head and pulling out some dried squirrel meat, but the thought of it does less than satisfy. Her stomach churns, so she lies her head down once more, turns in her blanket, shuts her eyes, and tries to sleep it off, remembering as she does the headache and dehydration she'd suffered after the night of moonshine. In his sleep Daryl turns too, wrapping his dead tired body around her, slinging one arm over her and pulling her in.

When she wakes again she feels more herself, her stomach is settled and her head is clear. She rises and goes to the river, brushes her teeth, washes her face, and puts the indulgence of the night, and its morning repercussions, behind her. Beth checks the fish traps and collects the single brook trout that got itself caught sometime in the early evening or night. The construction of the original basket woven traps was James'. The cone shaped design, with an angled opening leading in, making escape in the reverse direction difficult, was modeled as best it could be after the innovation of the Native Americans. With a swift cut Beth dispatches the fish and uses her freshly sharpened blade to carefully cut, clean, and filet the meat.

* * *

Days pass, time passes, the camp of seven restructures itself and solidifies as a camp of nine. Beth's hair's grown a little longer in the time, so that now it mostly reaches nearly to her ears, longer in some spots, still shorter in others. The weather's changing, it's getting colder. The air is icy in the mornings and nights; Daryl and Beth work diligently to tunnel through to the campfire, though admittedly little heat is likely to be drawn in by it, but it is better to act, better to try, better to not lie stiff and cold in the nights thinking there is something more that could be done.

Before the days shorten, and before the hunting goes scarce, Daryl and Tom are making plans for a more efficient method to dry and smoke meat. The camp's methods of fishing too is being redesigned. The basket traps work, but require a lot of maintenance and baiting. Up river, where the stream runs wider and shallower, is the site of a new construction they've started at Daryl's suggestion, what he called a 'Cherokee V'. It's a large elongated 'V' formation in the riverbed built of stones and rocks. The wide mouth opens upstream — the fish swim in, but do not swim out. The construction of it would go faster if there were more rocks and building materials at the ready, but the wooded forest is flat, and not too rocky. As it is, the group loads them in in small batches carried in packs on their backs when they journey out to track or to clear. Along now with tracks and edible plants they look for rocks when they're out, and also branches — long ones, straight, no broader than a ring or pinky finger, with not too many offshoots. Daryl has started making bolts, shaving them down, sharpening the ends, make a cache for the crossbow. The camp was high functioning when Beth and Daryl joined it; with two more pairs of hands and two more heads for planning it's only getting stronger, in both defenses and provisions.

In accordance with the camp's egalitarian structures the crossbow belongs to the camp as a whole, but it's more Rob's than anyone's – just as Peter and James are the would-be leaders if there were any – but Daryl has the usage of it. It would be unjustifiable if he did not, given the level of skill he'd demonstrated, and it would be pointless if he did not, everything he kills with it benefits not just himself, not just Beth, but all of them. He's taken the time to offer Rob some pointers, and given Simon some training with it as well. Daryl uses it now for his hunting rounds and keeps it with him when standing watch with anyone other than Rob. Beth uses it too on her stints of night watch, but she's only ever had occasion to shoot it when Daryl makes her practice or takes her with him when he hunts. The bow is not his own, it fires differently, the scope and range are not as good as what he's accustomed to, but it is so far better than nothing, as both Beth and he knows, and life is slowly piecing itself back together. Not in a way that it was before — the others would have to be found for that — but in a way that feels all right. They are all right.

Though Beth has it in her head there is something wrong with their water, something that must be upstream somewhere, infusing it, maybe infecting it. It isn't just the canteen; the water does not taste right. The others detect no difference, and because there is no other option but to continue to drink it, she d _o_ es, and tries not to think about it. Beth is doing a lot of that lately, tucking certain inconveniences of reality away, leaving them to face for another time. For now she, like the others, has her mind on winter — preparing for it and getting through.

From the swimming hole below Daryl returns to camp in the falling dusk, wet and freshly bathed. The realities of this new world — blood and rot and sweat and dirt — seem to be bothering his bunkmate more noticeably now that they're not so constantly on the move and have time for things like a bath and clothes washing. Though clothed in a shirt a little too tight, pants both a little too short and too tight, and a sweatshirt that won't zip – garments borrowed from James and Tom while his own tattered articles hang drying by the fire – even Daryl Dixon can't deny the comfort of wearing something not describable as grime.

Approaching the circle of light thrown out by the flames, Daryl, not unlike a dog, shakes out and throws back his wet hair and feeling somewhat renewed steps closer. Beth, who he half thought might already have retired to their hut, is there amongst the other familiar faces of the camp. She's been needing more rest recently, sleeping more than she had been, taken to resting before dinner, maybe, now they finally have a constant place to lay their heads, at last making up for all the miles and miles they walked on end without reprieve. But she is up, seated at the fire with the others, talking some and chatting.

In their time with them, this group and this camp has rendered themselves a home for the two prison refugees, and now he watches as she sits there, seated beside boys her own age, smiling, a laugh even occasionally breaking out across her flushed and contented face. Daryl takes a swig of water, and blinks. There where they sit in the firelight, he reflects, lit in the fading pink light of dusk, laughing and talking as they are, eating a fire-roasted meal, sipping from sturdy-handled mugs, they could be on a campout almost; just a bunch of college kids out on some campout or picnic. Excepting how tired, dirty, and thin they all objectively look, this could be any old group of friends before the turn, out in the woods for fun, their youthful faces lit by the light of the low-burning fire. She'd fit in so naturally, and the guys proved eager to welcome her. They tease her, kid with her, vie to make her laugh. James does so especially, then there's Rob, who's quiet mostly, or, economical with the words he uses with her, but he looks, watching her some, if he feels no one else is. More than once Daryl's caught Simon in a series of flustered blushes, his fair complexion revealing more than any adolescent would wish revealed, but Daryl sees it all as harmless, and of no threat to Beth. Her presence in camp may have introduced a dynamic that was not in camp before their arrival, but it hasn't changed the core nature of the boys who built it. Intrigued they most definitely are, amorous maybe, but little more; he can't fault them for that.

Daryl moves in, picks a serving of rabbit and root mash for himself, and drops himself to the ground, leaning against a sawed log stool for support. He feeds himself, chewing slowly, watching the embers absently, letting the light chatter drift over him, only half listening to anything they're saying. He looks up when Beth drops a dollop of her own uneaten food on his plate, his hooded eyes glance at her, then he digs in, scooping his index and middle finger together to spoon the stuff to his mouth.

When the conversation slows, and the night round them has grown darker, and nothing especially is being talked of, Daryl chucks a piece of bark into the fire, watching the momentary spark it creates when it hits. When the flames normalize he leans back, rubbing his calloused hands on the thighs of the worn and ripped-torn pants he wears. "Think it's time to do a run."

No one speaks, but most eyes turn to him. Since Beth and Daryl joined them there had been no runs into towns, or to highways. The group has made itself self-sufficient, it was a conscious choice: Supplies will run out at some point — what towns and cities have to offer will not last and there will for certain come a time when there'll be no choice but to depend on what they can get for themselves, so they started early, and got good at it. In doing so they not only better keep themselves supplied and fed, they stay clear of other scavengers, a point not to be undervalued.

It's Peter who speaks up, and his eyes meet Daryl not with suspicion, but prudent reservation. "Why?"

Daryl's eyes find Beth's, then focus on Peter and the others. "Season's changin'. Winter'll be here b'fore we know. Huntin' will be harder, nights'll be colder. We need food — if we c'n get it." He glances then again at Beth, "We need blankets, an' warmer clothes."

James looks at him, "We've done a winter outside already. Two of 'em."

"So 've we." Daryl's voice is firm and masculine, he's not trying to one-up teenagers.

"Being on the road — in cars and crashing in houses — is not what it's like out here," John remarks.

Daryl looks from James, to Peter, to Rob and John, and to the others. "You think this camp's got all it needs for the winter?"

Nobody especially says anything. Beth and Daryl are the first people they've encountered in a long time; it's worked out well but they're in no hurry to mix with others. Isolationism and self-preservation have been essential contributors to their long-term survival to this point. They don't take risks they don't absolutely have to, that's how who still remains of their once much larger group is still living.

Daryl rolls his tongue under his bottom lip , his lower jaw jutting out as he does so, and his gaze lands on Simon. "D'you?'

Simon looks at him, and swallows. The others listen for what he'll say. "I think," the boy says, "with too much comfort, we'll forget what's keeping us alive — what's making this place work. We stay light."

"Yeh?" Daryl grunts, "We'll be  _real_  l _i_ ght, soon e'nough." He says again, "We need what food we c'n get, while it's still out there to get. Even jus' salt f'r curing. Foil. More tools. A heating duct for the smoker. More."

"I'h wouldn't mind another blanket. Or three," Beth contributes. "And a change of clothes. Something warmer, with less holes."

"Gloves," Daryl nods. "An' socks."

"We could use a kettle," Michael adds.

Eyebrows rise at one of them breaking ranks, though Beth's request for a blanket had already seen just about all of them waiver.

"Doubt there's any left tuh find," John speaks up, "but we could use some batteries, if there 're any."

Eyes move around the circle, weighing costs, measuring needs, taking stock of each member's stance. Peter pinches the bridge of his nose as if in thought, then shrugs anticlimactically. "Make a list."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to say how happy I am to have you all as readers, you have really made working on this and my other TWD pieces so much fun! Your responses, and insights, and predictions are the best! [To anyone who also reads "Hold On", it's not foresaken, just ruminating while I think on it and enjoy this story for a bit.]
> 
> I'll add one more thing, which is to say I know there has been some general anxiety about Beth and these boys, and without addressing anything definitively, I will say that when I started this whole section, I was thinking about several teenage/young adult boys I've known through my work, and thinking how people like them would fair and what they would do in this kind of world. This group isn't representative of every young man - there's Randal for starters - they are themselves. :)


	26. Chapter 26

It was decided that they would stagger the run, head out in small groups in different directions. For certain making the run as a larger mass would make them more formidable against any hostile groups they might encounter, but it was discussed and decided traveling together all as one would likely draw more trouble than repel — better to be quick, and stealth, and small. Better, if it should come to it, to lose some than all. They sorted themselves into threes: Peter, James, and Michael; Simon, Rob and John; with Beth, Daryl and Tom making up the third. No one is to stay behind at camp, it would be too difficult to defend under attack with just a few there. If confronted with any formation of walkers greater than a cluster, if confronted with anyone living, it would necessitate an immediate evacuation anyhow (if one could be managed), so, better then to leave the camp, to chance and to the walkers, and afterwards to return with caution to discover what remains.

James Peter and Michael have the furthest to go, heading south-east to a town they suspect might be worth the risk, in balance of what it might have to offer. With the most miles to cover, and potentially the biggest haul to bring back, it is they who take the bikes. Discovering something more about the camp's defenses and resources, Daryl and Beth had learned the camp keeps four mountain bikes hidden in the brush, positioned – one in each direction – not too far from camp. The idea being, should they ever have occasion to flee or get somewhere in a hurry, they can. Two can ride on one when necessary, but not on a run, not when the point is to bring things back to camp. So three bikes go with them as does one pair of the night vision goggles.

Sorted and organized they said their goodbyes, meaningful enough to matter, and to last, if this does happen to be the last time they meet, but light enough, and candid and joking enough not to hang a heavy pall over their enterprise; no one wants to be morose. James hugged his cousin, holding him tightly round the neck and kissing the top of his head, and then shoved John back with a smirk and a nonchalant air. Michael hugged everyone, twice, even Daryl. Tom and Rob kidded back and forth, never saying a 'goodbye' or 'take care' or even 'good luck', but meaning it. Simon had tried at playing it cool, as the three groups splintered off, but it was in his eyes, and the others knew the youngest of them was anxious at their parting.

As James Peter and Michael head south, making strong purposeful athletic pedals as they ride standing upright, crashing through the forest growth with speed, John leads his group northward, making towards a little farming town, not unlike the one Beth was raised in. They carry with them two handguns, poorly loaded, four knives and the second pair of night goggles. They carry with them also a shovel, a compact one, reaching just to their hips if stood upright, carried slung round John's back with his pack, kept as a weapon as much as a tool. Heading west, on the lower ground, Tom leads the way as he Beth and Daryl course their way to a small suburban town he and the boys have dipped into once before already. Tom has a knife, a good one, and he carries in his back waistband a pistol with two rounds. Slung back across his shoulder is an aluminum baseball bat he fixed with 4mm nylon rope. Beth carries her knife in her belt and another in her boot. Daryl has his knife, and the crossbow. Rob wasn't eager to give it over, and Daryl would have understood if he hadn't, the bow is not his to claim, but what it came down to was: the suburb they're heading to stands more of a chance of being overrun than the farm town, and Daryl had more than proved his prowess with the bow. The ruling had been made logically and without passion; the weapon went with who could use it best and to where, by best judgment, it would be most needed.

The three groups set out early. After a large breakfast and an equal division of provisions and the thorough filling of canteens they said their goodbyes, and got on their way. In the morning hours Tom leads them first, walking through the woods with the sun behind them, still not risen above the trees. They pass walkers as they travel; the ones closest to camp have all been killed already, left by one member of the group or another to rot and ingloriously decompose, which is what they are doing. They never risk burning them, the fire might burn past their control and burn them all out, and even if not, pillars of smoke rising above the tree line does little to maintain a low profile. The carcasses are left to continue their decay without animation, as should have been the case for them all from the start. The stench as they pass is awful and could only be worse if the day were warmer, but they move quickly and do not linger.

They eat while they walk, not sparing time for any unnecessary stops. Through the day each takes turns leading the march, keeping the pace steady when another starts to lag. Beth tries at conversation a couple of times, nothing sticks for long as they walk, but they do talk a little. Tom tells some about his life before, and a little of his journey to Georgia after. He moves on from there, keeping them amused, eliciting a few chuckles; he has an off-kilter, wry absurdist sense of humor and somehow the absence of anything funny in the last years hasn't squashed absolutely the presence of mirth in him. With all said though, he is not a fool.

They talk some about the coming winter, about what they hope to find in town, more about what they should look for, what they should prioritize. They talk some of strategy, they don't know each other well enough to manage a run without some orchestration. Though Beth can read Daryl without signal or sound, and he her, they do not have this with Tom. They set a plan, and they review signals. They set a contingency plan, and formulate a back up to that. Before they parted the three groups had established multiple meet up points, the camp is only one locale at which they might all reconnoiter; if it is not safe there are other locations to try; they review these too, but mostly they move in silence.

Mostly they slip past the walkers they encounter though a few times they had to engage, another two times they had to run. Early mid-afternoon Beth saved Tom; he'd broken formation, by no fault of his own, and was getting closed in on, forced back further and further away from her and Daryl. Beth completed her kill, yanked back her knife, and drove it immediately inwards and upwards through the neck, into the skull of one of those in deadly pursuit of Tom. With the blade in she released the hilt from her grip and shoved the thing forcefully, with all her might, into another one, pushing it off its course, away from Tom. She then yanked another one to her, and into the dank hollow eye socket of its skull plunged in her second knife, taking it down, thrusting it aside and stomping powerfully on the head of one Tom was wrestling on the ground. By that time Daryl was free to shoot the other down and Beth extended her hand to reach down and help Tom to his feet. They stood, they caught their breath, he wiped his face, Daryl wordlessly glanced over Beth, and they moved on.

They walk, through shadows, through brush, over train tracks and back roads. They keep moving, chasing the light, trying to make their destination before dark. They pass by several tableaus of past violence, pain and death. Camps bloodily abandoned, vehicles smashed and burned, corpses killed before they ever turned. It's too much to discern the stories, to translate the pain, they let them be, the past has claimed them, the souls in those stories have found their peace or not, they cannot attach themselves to what's gone and was never theirs to lose. Eyes forward, pace steady, minds focused, they walk. They have to. There's nothing else to do if they'd wanted.

Topics of conversation drift in and out, for the most part their journey is quiet, they focus on the walk, focus on the time they're keeping, focus on the energy they're exerting, focus on the task ahead. All of them had talked it over the night before, made lists in their heads, specific lists. Lists of what to look for and where to look for what, what to take, what to leave behind, what to prioritize, what not to bother with, which location is more likely to yield which items. They talked everything from garden hoses and peppercorns to bleach, batteries and pillow cushions. They talked plans and contingency plans, all the while knowing nothing anymore ever plays out in accordance with a plan. They have to stay loose, alert, and in the moment. They have to rely on the others they're with and make decisions in the moment.

As their approach draws closer Beth again follows Tom, and Daryl behind her as they navigate the thinning woods toward town. It is not winter yet, but every day the air grows cooler. So crisp that waking in the morning and breathing in sometimes cuts one's breath halfway in; though the distance is long, Beth is glad for the exercise, this is the warmest she's been in days. (Strange to reflect in the light of all those weeks and months Daryl and she had spent overheated and sweltering.) Though traveling most of the day over mostly rough terrain with no cut path, the journey is easy; they've been conditioned for this, and Beth and Daryl's days in camp have left them revitalized and strong.

When they make it into town it's under the fall of darkness. Stepping out of the tree line Daryl finds himself missing the advantage of the military grade night vision. As much as they can see, there's little movement; no sign of walkers, no sign of the living. It cannot be this easy they know, but this is what they've come for, so alert and with great stealth they push forward. Tom keeps his senses keen, scanning for the dead; Daryl moves with precise caution, looking not just for signs of walkers, but of anything that moves, many crack of light that might betray a concealed encampment. Beth is attuned, and alert, and moves with weapon at the ready, looking for signs of which houses have likely been raided before. Meaning not to waste time on buildings already ransacked and emptied, they move through the first streets, being cautious not to move too deep into town before they know what they're facing. Tom guides them some, recalling off-hand which structures he remembers hitting last spring. Save for the moon, which is near full and low and yellow, the streets are dark. They'd held off on the run a few days to time it with the light; with only one still-working flashlight between them it was an essential measure to take. The darkness is constant, no trace of light creeps through at any point.

"If anyone's here—" Daryl's gruff voice mutters low as he turns round on his spot in the desolate street, making a 360 sweep, the crossbow armed, raised, and at the ready "—they're packed in tight f'r the night." The strain in his ready biceps lessens just fractionally, "We're either gonna find 'em or not."

It's decided then, they move in — the quicker they scavenge and get what they need, the quicker they're back on the road. Daryl moves ahead, Tom and Beth follow in cover, and he kicks in the first door. They move from house to house in muted silence under the cover of darkness. They gather blankets, winter clothes, batteries, kitchen knives and bludgeoning tools. They grab matches, what rolls of toilet paper they can find, a bottle of aspirin, a shovel. Beth scores a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, Tom finds a water filter, which he almost just lets be, Daryl finds a carton of bullets, but no firearm to match. There's more, a hand-crank coffee grinder, because they still can't find a pistol and mortar, though Beth is certain there must be some around. Rope, or wires, they even venture into some easy-accessed attics and tear down some insulation. They work into the night, creeping through houses, moving quickly, without sound and without light, using nothing but the brightness of the moon and their alerted senses to navigate.

They smell for walkers, they listen; they take out more than several. They feel for what they're looking for, not risking drawing in the attention of the living, not risking the giveaway of their flashlight light unless deep with the structure of a house. On occasion they allow themselves quick flashes of glow sticks when needed, when deep inside dark rooms; last year the boys thought to clear a party store, and though there was little there of use — paper plates with no food, plastic clothes with no warmth, rubber masks upstaged by every monstrous walker outside — they did walk away with a large stash of glow sticks and glow necklaces and every other stupid piece of jewelry a factory in China could possibly create from glow-able plastic tubing. The glow sticks prove effective for exactly this kind of work – their light is low and dim, illuminating just what it's held over but throwing near no light beyond.

Though their eyes have adjusted to the dark it is frightening work. At each new door they the introduce some noise, something to announce their presence and stir up anything that might be lurking in the shadows before they insert themselves within them, but each new doorway remains an opportunity to be beset upon, another risk of stumbling into a nest of theretofore stagnant walkers, to walk head first, blindly into death. Their heart rates never settle. The whole night is breathless comfortless coursing adrenaline, never paralyzing them with fear just thundering through them, pushing them on. Searching houses is the gamble they agreed upon, and now they must see it through.

They work efficiently, like practiced burglars; the mental lists they built and reviewed serve them well, as as rushed as they are, and faced with so many mundane luxuries they've had to forego, in the moment it tests them to leave behind what earlier they might have taken. Survival is an ever changing game, requiring the retraining of the mind not once, but continuously. They are selective in what they take. A lot of what Daryl would have grabbed on a run when supplying the prison or while back on the farm now gets left behind. Creature comforts no longer make the cut, and now that they're foraging they're own food, cooking outdoors, some things are more vital than they were — tarps, trash bags, plastic sheeting, mosquito netting, chalk, wind chimes, tin foil, salt, every shaker and packet and carton they can find. It's warm clothes, weapons, tools, medicine, and food, if they can find any. They pack backpacks and duffle bags, Tom finds a shopping cart. They pack in what they can, gather what can be carried, prioritizing ruthlessly, and leave the rest behind. They take no more books, Beth finds no art. It isn't that they can't think about those things, or appreciate them, but that it feels safer, cleaner, to stay light, and unburdened. What the boys keep reminding them is, what's kept them alive is their willingness to walk away from their home in the trees, and it's best not to make it too hard to walk away from.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uuuuuuughhhhh! Tonight... This show is killing me. (And no reveal of Beth's grave? Whaaaat?)

It's late in the night when their pace finally lulls. They've covered rows of houses — little more now than abandoned ransacked shells — killing collectively in that time well over a dozen walkers, maybe twice that, avoiding so far, even in the thick blackness of the night, any ambushes. Even in the dark the close calls never took them down; it was luck, as much as anything else – a breath slower, an inch further to one side, a hair less prepared; so much could have played out differently, but as it happened all three are still standing, and their haul, though light in food, is mostly successful, and worthy of their efforts and risks taken. They're slowing down now; Beth seemed to have hit a definite wall some time back, and with her fading quickly, and both Daryl and Tom weary, and a long walk back through the woods in pitch dark, they call it quits and determine to hunker in for the night.

Wanting to be positioned best for a quick exit out of town should they get swarmed – or attacked – in the small hours while they rest, they move to the outer edge of town, to the old outskirts where there had been farmland before suburban sprawl had developed the town. The house they move into is an old one, a once well-kept farmhouse, three-storied and, excepting for electricity, mostly likely never connected to the city's utility lines when the town sprung up around it. The three stories, the narrow staircases, the veranda roof wrapping full around the house, the short distance to the cover of the woods, they all meet Daryl's requisites, so after clearing it, they drop their gear and barricade the doors.

Daryl and Tom work to block the first floor windows with furniture and whatever they can, avoiding as much as they are able and deem safe the hammering of boards, the noise of which would only announce their presence. While they work Beth ventures upstairs to the second floor, keeping herself, as she does, from looking too closely at the house – the sun-bleached walls, the heavy wavy-glass windows, the worn floorboards, the homey antique furnishings, the ancestral black and white photographs... While pilfering and rummaging through those countless houses her mind had been focused acutely on two things:  _safety_  and  _supplies._  The houses hadn't been homes to her, they were bargain-bin warehouses, but now their searching is on hold, and this place is a home, once loved and well cared for; so like her own, empty now, without a family, without sound or warmth or soul. Her heart twinges and would pang again for what's been lost, but she reigns in her thoughts and settles into a sitting room, and anteroom to a big windowed bedroom just beyond, and sets to work to piece together a small meal for the three of them. Staying busy is what she's learned, the doing the things that need being done. Her home on her family's farm was lost, her family also is lost, she can't change these things, but they are tired and hungry, and she can do something about that. She uses her knife to cut and pry open a can of vegetables, and spreads out on the old rag-knot rug the other provisions they'd happened upon in their searches.

Beth listens to the sounds of furniture being moved below her, of boards being put up and trip lines strung. Her eyes droop heavily; she's tired, and worn out. She tries to eat, but somehow she just gets stuck. Beth's frozen in place when Tom finds her — right hand stuck in the journey of bringing a forkful of canned green beans to her mouth. "Hey—" Tom tries for her attention. "You awake?"

Jolted from her waking doze, Beth's eyes blink as she manages to reanimate herself. She looks at her raised fork – halfway to her mouth – and lowers it. "Mm,hm," she murmurs.

Tom shuffles heavily into the room and drops himself onto the rug beside her. "Long day." Beth nods, and pushes the can into his hands. His brow arcs at her, "Any good?"

Through her exhaustion Beth brushes back the hair that's now just long enough to have any movement in it at all, and fights her way through a yawn. When her eyes reopen Daryl's standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his soft eyes watching her quietly. "Should get some sleep," he says. "Place 's shut up pretty tight. We got alarm lines on the windows an' stairs."

Tom glances at him, his mouth full of beans, "We standing watches?"

Daryl uncrosses his arms and moves into the room, "Think we'll be al'right." He takes the half-eaten can being passed to him and shovels a forkful into his mouth. "For a coup'l hours anyway." He glances at Beth, nudging her foot with his boot, "D'ya eat?"

Her eyelids are growing leaden; Beth's head answers in movement, but from the limited exertion it is unclear whether it was meant as a nod or a shake.

"Think we've lost 'er," Tom observes with a half grin as he eats a handful of beyond-stale saltine crackers.

"Al'right," Daryl nods, and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. His head jerks sideways at the bedroom just beyond, "Which one've you claimed the room?"

"My guess is she's not movin' easily," Tom replies. "I'll find another." He rises, with another handful of crackers and a strip of squirrel meat dangling from his teeth, and moves toward the narrow hall. In the doorway he leans with his hand on the knob before pulling it closed, "Sleep a couple hours, then get back to the woods?"

Daryl shrugs, biting into what dried meat's left from camp. "Maybe check around a little more. Like this one said," he glances at Beth, "still gotta check for garden transplants."

Tom nods, "Yeah. Got it." Though it's dim in the room, it appears as though from nowhere a small blush hits Tom's freckled ruddy complexion, and he clears his throat awkwardly, "So, y'all—" Daryl's brow piques at this change in his demeanor, "I'm heading upstairs… but I'll be in shoutin' distance. …" Self-consciously he clears his throat, "G'night," and shuts the door behind him.

Alone now, and skipping past their companion's fumbling innuendo, Daryl reaches down and holds a hand out to Beth. With her best effort she pulls herself up. "Ya tired?"

Beth yawns again, " _Guess I'm no't used tuh the walkin' anymore_." She's awake, but lethargic, and as soon as she's upright she's leaning into him, relying on him and not her legs to keep her standing; the words she mutters disappear into his leather vested chest, so muffled are they by how she rests.

Seeing no point in keeping her standing, Daryl scoops her up and lifts her, carrying her through the sitting room to the bedroom. The house is cold, the air is chilled, but it is not drafty, and she is warm in his embrace. Walking through the darkness with her Daryl remembers the feel of her in his arms the night he'd carried her to the table all that long time back in that other old house, the mortuary. He hasn't had occasion to since; her ankle healed.

So much has changed since then. There'd been nothing to carrying Beth back then, it had been a means to an end — getting her to the table quicker; now he's getting her to a bed quicker, but it's different. She had been just a friend back then, more than a companion, but only a friend, maybe a sister, of sorts. That's all he could see her as, those early days, weeks on the road; that's all that was possible. He hadn't wanted more, couldn't formulate the thought, the desire, the risk. He'd been tied to her — more so, deeper, since that night, at the still — but she hadn't been his, not in that way. There had been nothing particular of love in the old act of carrying her, Beth Greene, in his arms, on his back; but love came. It came both slowly and suddenly — like the slow gathering of rain clouds, the air growing thick and heavy with moisture, but no rain, the sun burns on, the birds still call, then boom, an instant torrential summer downpour. The moment Beth was his to love he loved her fully, and now when he carries her – which he still would have done had this love not bloomed between them – he does so so familiar with her body; he knows its weight, its bends, its capabilities, its vulnerabilities, its secrets. He knows her now as well as he's ever known anything.

Daryl sets her on the bed, and dumps a handful of broken glow sticks from his back pocket into a dusty glass on the bedside table for some light. Beth yawns and rubs her eyes while he draws close the curtains and pulls an extra blanket from the back of an antique rocker by the bed. The old floorboards creak as he moves.

Beth slowly and methodically unfolds the blanket he'd handed her while he unknots and tugs off his boots. "How're y' feeling?" The lines around his soft eyes crease as he looks at her. Daryl keeps his jaw square but his eyes study her intently, and though standing very near her his posture keeps him a little ways removed.

Beth's soft blue eyes blink solemnly. "I'm okay."

Daryl's quick eyes dart right to hers, "Naw Greene," his rough familiar voice rumbles, as he shakes his head at her. "Really."

Beth's passively tired expression shifts, she's twice as alert as she just was only seconds earlier "... If that's you asking if—"

Daryl keeps his steady watchful eyes on her, "Are you?" His voice is deep and strong in the darkness, fixed almost, like a rooted tree, or a Georgia mountain. Blue Ridge; Daryl is like the Blue Ridge Mountains, standing fast, keeping his gaze steady on her as Beth looks at him, her eyes wide, and equally watchful.

Her lips part, as though she's readying to answer, but in the end she makes no reply but instead asks, "What makes you think I am?"

Daryl only looks at her. His deep blue eyes blink. "You are."

The room is silent after the words are spoken, echoing heavy and gravelly in their ears. He can't say how he knows, what first put it in his head. She hasn't been sick; it probably hasn't been all that long. But once it caught in his mind it stuck, and it's just felt more and more true.

Beth looks at him, with all her honesty, and finally nods. "I am. I think I am."

Daryl looks at her, his eyes unconsciously narrowed, blinking, taking a moment to process what he'd thought he'd already known. "Y're?" His eyes flutter as he looks at her, struggling to maintain eye contact under her solemn look. "A baby…" he half chokes on the whispered utterance, so constricted is his throat around the knot that's growing there; his chest tightens and swells, his eyes water some, so impactful and daunting and sacrosanct is this new knowledge. His body strains under the weight of his emotions.

"A pregnancy," Beth distantly amends. The secret she wasn't certain she was keeping has been spoken, the one she wasn't revealing to herself, and now it has been, she sees no use in ignoring the realities. There may be no baby, no pregnancy brought safely to term. Things go wrong. Too many things; every day. There may never be any motherhood to come for her. She could die, so many many ways before her time, or the child could. What would have in another life seen their numbers grow from two to three, in this life she fears will stay an undetermined two, or even reduce them to one—

Daryl's head shakes gravely, "Don't talk tha' way."

But Beth Greene, as ever, will not be persuaded from her way of thinking; her belief in the good has never not been tethered to reality — no good comes from not seeing danger where it lies; to see a walker, and not to see the threat, would be madness. "Lori didn't make it," she states flatly. Daryl grimaces. His rough hands flex and twitch at his sides. Beth has faith for days, but nothing gets between that girl and the truth. If she knows it to be true she'll say it regardless of the pain it causes and she'll smile as she does it. Though she isn't smiling now. This is not a thing she would choose to be right about. "—And she'd done it before."

"Lori ain't you," his stony voice rumbles and agitated he paces in place. Daryl swallows hard and he looks at her intently. "Things'll be diff'rent."

"… You don't know what will happen."

Daryl swings his arm in her direction, "Since when're you the pessimist?" He can't abide when she gets this way — truth above all decency. He might do it to her, and probably much more often, but he can't take it from her. Beth's the one who's supposed to believe in the good things. Especially for this. Most importantly for this.

"I'm not."

He also hates when she's this succinct and sure-minded, it makes it harder for him to badger her into what he wants from her. In this case, to believe. "You're gonna be fine," he declares, swinging his arm again and pacing more briskly. He tugs at his beard as he eyes her, then points with assumed authority. "That baby's gonna be fine. 'S all there is to it. You 'n it."

Beth studies him through watchful eyes; she nods. "All right."

"Just gotta have some faith, girl."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come...
> 
> I'd originally written this scene as the first time the pregnancy popped up at all, but I thought it might be too abrupt — if Daryl noticed it, there must be something he noticed — but I think I set it up a little too heavily :-/ as everyone guessed it. Oh well ;-)


	28. Chapter 28

She blinks, and her lips press together. "I do."

Despite every misgiving and apprehension she has, their course is already set; they're already upon it. There is nothing else to do but move forward, and to hope. Nothing good assuredly will come of believing all is already lost. All is not lost; there is life here, life enduring and new life beginning. This is the moment in which life is to prevail, over all the rank deprave viciousness around them.

Beth reaches out to him and grips his hand in hers. Fingers cling tightly to one another, entangling in wordless communion. Thoughts drift back to the prison, to their last day there; how far from that life they find themselves now. The shift between them as they've lived as refugees since that day, fostered by the extreme intimacy of life on the road, had been gradual; so slow, it is difficult to look back on to track the change, but  _this_  — this moment to that day he'd handed her the carbine rifle, watched with her as her father was murdered, and ran with her from the flames and devastation, marks decidedly the distance they have journeyed. To imagine themselves in this moment fit back into the shape of their old life seems hardly conceivable, and the distance they feel from their old selves begs the question:  _How have the others faired? If they're alive, and out there in the world, in what ways have they changed? What changes have been forced upon them, what sacrifices of self have been demanded? If they ever should manage to reunite, will their_ _hearts_ _still recognize each other?_  It's a futile concern — the changes of the road happen in the name of survival. What is left is what matters, and in the case of family, it is enough.

Silently they are thankful their own misadventures have not gotten the better of them. They're road has been long, and it has been perilous, but it has not exacted from them its highest cost. They've been allowed to stay themselves, to become themselves — what life before had, in different ways for each, kept them from being. It is a gift. This development is a complication, but it is not a calamity; it is neither a curse nor a death sentence. When they fled death at the prison they hadn't thought life would be ahead of them.  _Survival._  Everything became again only about survival. Scavenging – for what is nearing three years – though, has taught them well:  _Take what is given you, make it your own, and live._ This child is theirs to fear or embrace.

His hand still tight in hers, Daryl exhales and releases her to sit beside her on the bed. Beth's eyes fall to her lap while Daryl breathes, and runs his fingers roughly through his dirt-tangled hair. "We gotta get this right, Beth." He bites at the knuckle of his thumb while he thinks things through. "We ain't got walls, we ain't got guns; we don' have your dad no more, 'r Carol …" If he'd felt alone with her before, out on the road with nothing, disconnected and without resource, it is nothing to what weighs on him now. They have numbers again — boys — but that is all.  _There's some semblance of security in the camp, but will it last? Will it be enough?_ He'd meant what he'd told her, they're going to be all right, they just, they— "We need a plan," he utters heavily.

Tucking her hand beneath his on the mattress, Beth wraps her arm around his and pulls herself closer to him, resting her chin softly on his shoulder. Daryl remains frozen, struck so by all they have now to manage; with this news, everything they've been facing, every challenge just amassed more complications. But there's nothing to be done but shoulder them and be happy for it. Circumstances, he knows, could be much grimmer than the news of a child. A child conceived in love cannot be a thing that stops them in their tracks.

Slowly, stiffly, his bearded chin tucks down atop her head, and guardedly his arms reach round and hold her fast to him.  _A child..._  —He won't entertain to think about the other— She'll make it through the delivery; she has to. Her own baby cannot be what brings Beth Greene down. A child born to this world is going to need Beth.  _Judith had..._  A lifetime of concerns and doubts would flood in now and submerge him if he let them, but this is the moment Daryl Dixon squares off, blocks them out, and holds his girl, his woman, who's giving him a baby. With her close he shuts out all the  _'What ifs_ ', and thinks instead of a little blue eyed thing not too far off in their future.

She stays there in his arms, sinking into him, letting him be the one who is strong, letting him be the one who sees things as they should be. She wants a child. She would not have chosen this, but she wants his child, their child. But she has wanted other things in this world, other people, who have been so cruelly ripped away and lost. She had watched Carol, and the other mothers in the prison who lost their children— And there was Judith and all the other kids who'd lost their parents, their mothers. The pain is unspeakable, unknowable even to her who's now lost both loving parents, and maybe, by now, both her siblings. But even still, those kids had had the group, their larger family; they'd had so many eyes and hearts looking out for them. And still they'd been failed when the prison had fallen. She and Daryl are on their own.  _If she doesn't make it, who will the baby have aside from Daryl? Who will Daryl have?_

She does not wish it undone, but— "Is it terrible?" finally she speaks, pulling away to look at him. Daryl twitches at the implication, but he says nothing. His head hangs, low over himself, like he can't look at her. Like he can't look at himself. He'd found them a place for the night. Fought his way into an infested farm house, sealed it up for her to have a place to rest — she would be needing to more and more for some time longer — as he remembers it Lori spent most of her first months sleeping. Not sleeping actually, as being so frequently on the run so rarely permitted it, but he remembers her exhaustion. She got past it with time, but for a while it would strike her hard and out of nowhere, and it had slowed them down on more than one occasion. But they had had cars then to compensate, and they had had walls. Both advantages Beth and he do not have. They had been on the run for sure, but still Lori had been insulated. And they had been with family. Beth has these four walls for just this one night, and then a ditch, in a small stretch of land, in the woods. With winter coming, and walkers and killers on the loose.  _And can they even stay? Ask the boys to take on Beth's care, and the child's? Judith had been born in hell, but Ass Kicker'd lived her short life inside thick concrete walls. What will his child have to protect it when it cries? To muffle its wails as it unknowingly sounds an alarm? He'd told Beth he knows she'll make it through the delivery, but what then?_  Daryl feels Rick's mania taking hold.  _Has he shouldered more than he can carry? How is he to keep this girl and her child safe?_

Beth's soft quiet voice speaks again, faint, but present in the dimly lit room. She feels the lengths he's going to in his mind to make this all all right. " _Sorry_." It's almost a whisper, but audible in this quiet house.

A pain constricts in his chest. Never would he want her sorry to have his child, to be a mother. She is young, but she can do this, maybe with a balance of strength and grace absent now entirely from the world save for her. If what they've been fighting for in all these miles, thorough all the heartbreaks, despite all their crippling losses, is to  _Live_ , then he cannot have her be sorry when life carries on. She is young yet, still probably not nineteen, by all rights she should be in a dorm room somewhere, getting stoned and making friends and making A's, but that world is gone, that Beth never got to exist, and in this life death surrounds them every day. Though she is young, and this is not how life was meant to look for her as she grew up on Hershel Greene's family's farm, amidst death this is life taking its natural course, and they cannot be sorry for it.

Without raising his head he reaches out and grabs her, roughly taking hold tightly of the back of her head, pulling her towards him, bending her brow to meet his. He holds her in place while still he processes. It's not for her to say she's sorry. She's never done anything to warrant an apology. Though true, it might have been years, or more, before he would have laid his hands on her in passion, given in to his desire, had she not pushed his hand, but it had surely been there, halfway conscious at the least, and saying what was so was so like she had, and then acting on it, like she had, was more a thing to thank her for than to hold against her. Though he'd held it against Lori initially at the time, out of fear, no apologies are necessary for this coming child. Not to him. It's his baby she's carrying. It's his responsibility by half. If not more. He should have been more careful with her. He should have taken more care. More precaution. Been not so unbridled. But he does not want to go down this road of regret; all there is to do is move on. They have to let some of what happens to them be good. His grip loosens, but not by much. And finally his head lifts and his eyes meet with hers.

"I love you Beth," he says gravely. "I fucking love you." His earnestness somehow allays and assuages some of her worry. If he can speak to her this way, if his voice can be this hard, and this even, this stalwart, when facing the realities they are, then he must be resolved in the fact they'll be all right. Not definitely — their footing is ever precarious, but he has faith enough they can make a go of it, that still all is not lost. Daryl's faith — since the fall of the prison and the loss of everyone they love — is harder to come by than once it was; he struggles with it in a way he did not used to have to. When it rises then, defiant and dogged, it is easy to rely on.

Beth twists out of his grip until she's able to see him, and reaches her hand into his, interlocking her small fingers between his. She sits quietly with him, and there she waits, until he can find it within him once more to rise. And to stand. And when he does, she'll be there beside him. Not too frightened of the uncertain future. Which, sometimes, is the most courage one can pray for.

Beth leans into him, and as his body does not give or falter she bends her knees and raises her legs to the bed. They nuzzle some, in closeness and in silence, then Daryl straightens and reaches over for her legs, pulling them out from beneath her and onto his lap. Beth yawns, and watches lazily as he undoes the knots in her boots. When the bloodied boots drop to the floor Beth kisses his shoulder then sits back in bed, wriggles out of her jeans and climbs under the covers. Daryl rises, undoes his belt and steps out of his trousers. He pulls off the vest and shirts and slips in beside her.

The sheets are icy, but between them their bodies are warm, heated where their skin touches. Her leg slips between his knees, his arm tucks around her shoulder. They lie there, dumbstruck, and breathing, feeling the heaviness of their hearts beating within them. Beth pulls the covers in closer.

They have this house and these four walls tonight; they try to rest. Tomorrow all the concerns will still be there, all the questions yet to answer; they allow themselves this moment together in safety, like they should have had those many nights ago when he'd promised her a night's stay in a bed. They sink back into the bedding, into the pillows so deliciously unspeakably soft, cradling their weary limbs, their tried spirits, holding them together.

As he holds her, staring up at the dark ceiling, Daryl's hand strokes her back absently, tranquilly. There is no way to shut the glow sticks off so they lie there in their dim fluorescent haze. The repeated motion of Daryl's slow hand on her is soothing, and nestled into him she listens to his heart beat, and to the rough breathing in and out of air into his lungs. She is so tired, but her mind won't let her sleep.

There's a part of her that feels better for having spoken the words, but the knowing only answered one question, and left so many more unanswered in its wake. Like Daryl said, they need a plan. They need as many plans as they can formulate. They need options and resources and contingencies. Beth shudders as she breathes in deeply, her mind wanders, away from things like walls and weapons, food and defenses, and drifts to people— her, and Daryl, and... the baby... Her baby. Hers and Daryl's...

Moments pass. Daryl's eyelids flutter open and shut several times as he stalls between slumber and wakefulness. The house creaks, in that old familiar way. Outside the whirring hum of the crickets grows louder in their ears as they let the silence of the room surround them. All is still.

"Daryl," she breathes into him with desperate vulnerability, "where  _are_  they?"

Beneath the weight of her cradled head Daryl's chest pangs with longing in kind. His voice is dark, and broken when he answers. "Dunno, Beth." He holds her to him; his lips press warmly against her head. "Dunno."


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time! This chapter was meant to be finished by Feb. 12, in time for Valentines, but though it mostly was, it still needed a lot of tinkering and I had other things to attend to. I also think I needed a little Bethyl break because sometime early February I was shopping for produce with earphones on and when The Mountain Goats' "Up The Wolves" came on and I unexpectedly but legitimately started crying in the farmer's market. Not Normal :/ Anyway, I'm happy to be back, thankful for the votes of confidence in the last chapter, and here's the update (hopefully not too convoluted and all over the place)! [M]

Wrecked, and with no words left she holds herself to him. Daryl in turn squeezes her small frame to him and buries his face in the soft bend of her neck. He tries in his proximity to her to surface from the misery of their separation from the group. He resists it, as best he can, day to day, but it sinks down so heavy in him at times, when there is an opening, when he isn't vigilant to suppress it.  _Rick… What's left of her family… Michonne… Carl... Tyreese, Sasha, Bob… Carol. Out there on her own… Maybe with another group by now…_

Daryl winces, and shuts his eyes. He pushes it all down – suppressing the emptiness and the not knowing. He battles it back, to contend with another time. It's a luxury, to be in a bed with her – a real bed, at the same time, not running, not on watch, not wounded or hounded, not on hard ground.  _Safe._ He focuses on that. He breathes, and he focuses on her skin on his, on the feel of his body sublimely pillowed in the old bed, on the dark shadows on the ceiling above him, on the walls that surround them. Though he could lose himself in longing for their departed company, in worry and foreboding, Daryl reigns himself in and retrains his focus on the bed they share, on the quiet sound of Beth's breathing as she finally fades into sleep against him. He pulls himself back from a world he cannot control and focuses on her.

Lying there with her and with this new truth between them, his body is rigid, on edge, needing a plan.  _Moving forward, staying alive, staying together_ , is as much as they have.  _Keeping going._  He looks at her, where she rests now against him; he chews at his lower lip, worrying it as he thinks. Beth's sorrow just then as she spoke his name, as she spoke of their lost companions, was palpable, weighty. His eyes flash down on her.  _Beth…_  Heartbroken and apprehensive, lost and full of reservations as she is, still she's willing to hope. They both were. _Are._  It's how they know they're still living beyond taking in breath.

Certainty. It's always been his to lose.

He remembers the doubtlessness with which he'd sought after Sophia. It hadn't been a question for him — others' doubt had confounded him, but the world is not what it was since then. Even back then, that early on they'd known,  _he'd_  known:  _People_ are the enemy. From their first run-in with Guillermo to whoever it'd been who'd raided that old place, executing the elderly and their muscle, he'd known; but though he'd known the world was cruel then in the days of Sophia's absence – had always known how cruel the world could be, even to children – he'd still believed that things would come out all right for her, and her mom, in the end. He'd had no use for others' doubts, for Shane's defeatist callousness, but it hadn't worked out; Sophia had been lost. And so many more have been lost since then. Loss after loss, from walkers, circumstances, fevers and psychos, each pulling him just that much further from that inner part of himself he'd always been able to keep lit, even if meagerly — that light that helped him believe, and that maybe had kept him just this side of bad in the years he'd spent following Merle. Beth has that light, stronger, and brighter, fed by family and by safety her whole young life. Unlike him she'd had Hershel, she'd never had to fuel it on her own. Not till later, not till the change, and their coming to the Greene farm.  _But now…_

It's harder. Every day it's harder. And now, they're no longer living for just themselves. It's bigger now, and with things as they are, the stakes just got steeper, the costs that much higher.

He pulls her arm from her side and rests it on his chest. As she sleeps, as he blinks staring up at the dim ceiling, absently his thumb runs under her beads and threads and ties and over the scars on her wrist. He's never brought it up — her scars — since the day he'd flung it so cruelly in her face.  _Bastard,_  he winces. He's a bastard when he drinks. He's a bastard when he isn't careful. He knows this about himself; by this time Beth must too.

His calloused thumb journeys the length of her narrow wrist—Those scars, grisly and mortal, thin as they are, don't belong on her. Daryl does not know that Beth Greene, the girl too scared, too frightened and discouraged to live or to fight; that isn't his Beth, who he's lived with and traveled with, fought beside and survived beside. The other scars she bears — the ones she's gotten since on the road, since the farm fell, since they've been together, like the one just below where her arm starts from her left shoulder — are markers that she's living, that every day she's fighting to keep on living. They're not the same as what's kept obfuscated by bracelets and ribbons. The scar beneath her shoulder she suffered when she fell down into the brush fighting off a walker back in their early weeks in the woods. She'd stepped back, lost her balance on a loose rock and fell backwards. The twig that punctured her stuck in deep, but not too. There had been real fear of infection for some time, but with poultices, constant dressing changes and some hand sanitizer they'd gotten their hands on, she pulled through fine, none at all worse for the wear, save for a lumpy scar no bigger than a dime.

Given his way he'd hate to see her skin marred at all, lovely as it is, but these days the living have scars. Living flesh cuts, and bleeds, and heals. Every scar is another danger that wasn't a takedown. Daryl squeezes her wrist; he'd welcome a hundred scrapes and scars on her if it kept her alive and by his side. Like her hacked-off hair —  _pretty_  is hardly the point. And Beth will always be pretty to him. She stirs lightly. His eyes shift and watch her. Daryl blinks; so long as she is breathing, to him she's the prettiest thing in this world.

But the scars on her wrist… He's never given them thought till now, aside from the scorn he'd drunkenly flung at her. They're from a different time — two years back, maybe three by now, when she lost her ma, when Shane had led a firing squad into what she'd believed was still her family; when she really knew they were gone, her mother and the others, when Shane and all the rest of them had shot dead that last shred of hope, her pain took physical shape in the jagged slits cut across her pale skin, making forever visible the pain others quashed down inside themselves. Her small wrist and the raised skin brutally crossing its length testifies the pain they've all felt, the losses they've suffered, the disappointments they've endured, the despair they've battled. Beth had given action to her misery, but lost though she had been, she had not been alone in the pain that drove her.

She'd survived though, cut the despair and despondency out, and recovered from the bleakness of absolute grief. Like the Greene she is, Beth'd inarguably regrouped; she'd shifted her thinking, saved herself, and survived. But first, before that – he can no longer forget – she'd gone into shock, lay catatonic for days, then locked herself in a bathroom and sawed at that little wrist with shattered mirrored glass. She had done it; it's in her. It  _was._  He hasn't seen her stricken so since – not when they lost the farm and Jimmy and Patricia, not after Andrea, or Zach, or the outbreak, not even after her dad. There hadn't been time. She hadn't gotten to cry for Hershel, not properly, not enough; when she broke down over the kids he'd dragged her on, kept her moving. As things get worse – the longer they're out in the world like this – they get less and less time to feel their grief, to own it, only allowing themselves brief interludes to dip down into it.

Their loss of the group haunts them continuously, but so rarely do they allow themselves to slow and really feel it. If they feel it too much — any of it, the loss, the pain, the fear, the despair — if they feel it all the way, all the time, it will consume them, paralyze them, keep them from moving forward, standing upright, seeing clearly. In the shadows of the fallen prison it had taken Beth to drive it home for him, and she'd needed the same from him, to pull her along, keep her moving when the grief crashed down.

Beyond a point they could not do it for themselves, but they could do it for one another. It's what they have together, their keeping each other steady; they've been that for each other all these months – solace, grounding, direction, hope. Where one falters the other takes up the slack,  _but…_ His fingers stall on her rough skin once more.  _If this…_ His chest tightens and heaves—  _If this thing with them now – this pregnancy – goes wrong somehow… If— If they go through all this, all the danger, all the care, and in the end, their child does not survive…_ he cannot know what further costs the aftermath of that might exact.  _That kind of a loss… after what would be months of concentrated hoping…_

Through her mess of bracelets his calloused fingertips touch her raised and ragged scars. He can't think either of them could withstand that, that loss.  _Him or her._  He does not want to think what that loss could do to her, what backward steps it may push her down…

Beth is just  _Beth_  to him, has been for so long – strong and fixed and true; steady. But there's a fractured part of him he could let take over if he yielded to it, and for the first time in a long time he's questioning if she does as well.

It had taken a lot for him to love her — to take that risk, to open up, to let her in; it hadn't been a choice he'd made exactly — by the time it'd presented itself in a way that he was aware of, it was all too far gone already; he had to love her, he did love her. He  _does_  love her. What he wouldn't do to spare her, them, any pain he can. All this time, he's done what he could to protect her, to see her safe, as she does for him. She's saved him; day by day they save each other.  _But this…_  Whatever danger there is in it, it's too late to do anything, they're in it. All there is to do now is wait, take precautions as they may, and progress hopefully. But still, how well he knows, factors extend so far beyond what they can control with precautions and with hope. He knows she's strong, no question; tough and lasting, more grit-filled than anyone would know to take her for, but all people have breaking points. The strongest will some day break down. Had it not been for her he would have lost himself months ago. When the girl she was two years ago hit that black abyss she'd pulled herself out of it, with Maggie and with Hershel. This time she'll only have him.  _Will he be enough? Does he have it in him to be the light that she would need?_

Daryl knows only that if  _she_  does not survive, especially from this, that blackness chasing him those early days out will be a welcome reprieve from a world absent of Beth. With all else lost but his sorry self that could not help enough to keep her breathing, what else will he have but to give in to the bleak absence of light and song and life, and follow after? With her so close to him in this moment, his heart so full of her, there in this shared bed he cannot design any sort of a will to live beyond her; likely a more willing companion into death's never been. Again his thoughts trace upon Lori, and on Rick…

The glow sticks dim, their weak light slowly fading, and the room darkens, suiting his dark and troubled thoughts. It is unlike him to linger in doubt, to court despair and defeat before it is upon him, but never has he been so fully accountable. Never – though he's taken on the care of others for some years now – has he been so fully responsible. He's looked out for himself as far back as memory takes him, but nothing in his old life prepared him for the absolute taking on of others. His was a world of parallel paths but little solidarity. He'd had Merle's back, no question, but Merle hadn't always been around. And, if anyone had been, ol' Merle'd been resistant at best to anything connoting interdependence, or depth of feeling.

This is different entirely. With the help of Carol, Rick, and Hershel, and with the influence of Glenn and all the others of their group, Daryl had opened up. He'd found through them and with them a different way of seeing himself, and it was no longer just about looking out for number one — his family expanded beyond a redneck brother who couldn't help but make trouble for himself, even when the times called for sticking together. Daryl'd taken on the care of others, risking his own life for the well-being of the group, doing what needed to be done to keep everyone alive and going. The role took to him better than he could have thought of it for himself. He was never a leader; he'd been raised a survivor, solo, able to take his hits. But there is a limit. He can be broken. His ma. Merle. Hershel. Isolated as he was coming up, he's been battered and broken down by the betrayals and the losses he's known, but he knows now for certain there is more to lose. Somewhere in his travels he stopped being able to say he's got nothing to lose. He stopped being the redneck invested in nothing. He'd lost big with the prison fall, but there's precious more to hold on to.

And there are new obstacles facing them he cannot control. Pregnancy, without doctors or midwives, without nutrition and rest, without anything to ease or assist, threatens danger. Danger for her, danger for the expected baby. Things can go wrong. Food is not assured, rest is scarce, exhaustion is common. Difficulties are bound to arise. If she survives, if she does, but no child comes, what darkness might destroy him? What despair might she sink back into? That inconsolable despondency that such a singularly personal loss could bring on in her… What violence might she hazard to do to herself, if…

These thoughts, these dark and ugly fears plague him in the stillness. In the quiet Daryl cracks his right hand knuckles. Worry, like this, is new. His days with Beth are no longer 'as good as any' to die. He can't remember thinking that way now. There'd always been in him the drive to live – since a kid he'd fought to survive – but there'd been with it a freedom in being detached from what he lived among. The things he'd had had been easy to let go of. That'd died out with so much else. Living in danger since he was small had given him balls; living in death for so long had given him things – _people_ – to fight to hold onto.

The soft intake of Beth's slumbering breath whispers in the old bedroom. There's no sound from the floor above; Tom must have fallen right asleep. Outside there is nothing to sound alarm, just the rustling of branches. The night is quiet. Daryl's body lies frozen rigid; it is not his nature to give in this way. It comes unnatural to him to speculate fear and loss, but this night, this quiet night with their discovered secret, has gotten to him, and all the thoughts kept hidden in the backgrounds of his mind until now, they just quietly confirmed for one another.

Now they know. With this, they're taking a stand, mightily waging war on this yet undetermined future of theirs, and Daryl's mind will linger on the risks just until a more realized pressing threat presents itself to battle the present fears away. Daryl will not long indulge the fear, he won't carry it with them all these months they have ahead, but to live in darkness, surrounded by death and loss and danger, sometimes calls on one to examine the dark, to invite it in, to plunge its great yawning depths, and to prove to oneself that still it might be traveled through, still might one traverse the dangers and emerge from them. Death is a certainty. For all of them. It always was; in that one thing nothing has changed. Death is more apparent now, it holds a stronger presence, and may perhaps be much more treacherous, but in a life lived in death – as assuredly life always has been - death cannot be always hard-jawed looked-past; it must at times, to – at the very least – keep the madness at bay, be picked up, and examined, then put away.

As now he must needs do. Beth is all right. The baby has not been lost – it's so new it's still little more than an idea. Things will not go wrong. She'll not be lost. Come everything Beth will pull through. She is strong. People don't move backwards. If darkness comes — though she shouldn't have to, she  _won't_  have to — she can take it.

In his arms Beth breathes in deeply and stirs against him. The feel of her there, in silent slumber is centering, and he climbs out of his head as best he can and focuses on her. He presses himself to her closer.  _Beth…_ Beth.

He pulls her in closer, his broad arm wrapped tightly around her ribcage. Holding her, Daryl tucks his face into her shoulder. His lips brush her skin. So warm... She'd apologized earlier, but he feels deeply he's who should be saying he's sorry. He knew better. He absolutely knew better than to let this happen. If he'd had a modicum of self-control they could have averted this. He did, sometimes, muster that discipline that would signal him to pull himself from her, but not every time. Beth hadn't shown much concern for his self-restraint, and the pleasure of finishing with her was so sublime it was a primal urge hard to fight against, more so given he'd only just allowed it to reawaken in him. He'd shut that part of himself down, resigned himself to the mindset that that part of life was gone, but then there was Beth Greene, unlike anyone else. And now Beth Greene is pregnant.

She shouldn't be. Not in this new world, and certainly not in the old. In both she is too young. In this one it is an incalculable risk — what he doesn't want to call a liability — rendering them all the more vulnerable while out in the wild. A pregnancy. A delivery. An infant. A child. She should not be pregnant. 'Too young' is just the start. Already though that way of thinking is moot — she is not too young because it is happening, and there's no longer any 'shoulds' or 'should nots' left them. If it was indeed preventable is no longer at issue, it was not prevented. An hour hasn't passed and already these things constitute an old way of thinking.  _This_  is their life.

He will not apologize — neither while she sleeps nor when she wakes, cognizant of his words. Doing so would only hinder them, only give credence to the fear that this will put them in jeopardy. He can't have them fearing a baby. Certainly not their own. And so while she sleeps beside him, nestled soundly in his arms, Daryl gets his head straight, fixing his mind about this. Looking ahead, looking forward, he summons up what is needed to get by, finding in him the courage to take this too on, and the grace to count it as a blessing. No more looking back, this is the hand they're playing now.  
" _Mm_ …" Beth murmurs in her sleep. Her eyes flutter slowly open and closed as she breathes in heavily.

" _Shh,_ " he whispers into her head.

" _Da-ryl_ …" the sound of his name as she speaks it in her waking sleep is slow and warm, drawn and heavy like the old generational thread-worn quilt they're blanketed under.

"Y'r all'right, Greene," he tells her in tones low and firm. Daryl's steady hand strokes her back slowly, his other takes her hand in his and pulls it up to where he rests it on his chest.

Beth lies with him, drifting in quiet wakefulness, her hand in his, finger running imperceptibly over an old scar on his thumb.

Time passes; slowly or fast there's no way to mark it. They drift, not in slumber but in some mindless quiet middle place. They doze, in and out, off and on, letting minutes feel like hours and spurts of sleep feel like nights'. His hand keeps hers in his, gently folding it and refolding it within his as he sleeps. Their legs entwine, their breathing slows in time with one another's; lips touch skin. Slowly their bodies meld closer together, warmth drawn to warmth, hearts drawn to hearts, heat drawn to heat. The space between them is immeasurable and drowsily they stretch and bend into one another. The exhaustion of their run, the exhaustion of always being on the run, of their news, of their worry, of the world, leaving them tired, and open, and bound ever closer together.

Beth holds her arms around him, around the thick lean muscles of his lower torso, drawing him in nearer; Daryl holds her face, his arm hooked round her neck, brushing back her hair, stroking her sun-freckled face. In the midst of waking sleep lips slowly find each other, magnetized more by nature than conscious deliberate desire. Mouths whisper wordlessly to each other in kisses, languid, long-lingering drowsy kisses, all the while their bodies inch ever closer, entangling intimately. As they shift and move in the darkness their eyes stay shut in half sleep — they know each other without seeing; they love each other without out words, or looks or noise.

Their progress is slow, like honey; their breathing is steady. There's nothing hurried or even heightened in this time spent in each other's arms, in their hands, in their touch. With slow pulls Beth's tops are pealed off and dropped over the phosphorescent-glowing glass; under such cover the dim haze just beyond their heavy eyelids fades to blackness. Daryl's hands and lips are drawn to her, immediately she's back in his arms; he holds his head to her, breathing deeply. Her chest lifts and rises in deep steady alluring breaths beneath his rough face, warm with slow motion cherishing.

His hands find her belly, soft and incurvate as she lies there on her back beneath his touch. His hands linger there, learning her body as it is now in measure of the growth it will undergo. Below her navel his lips touch her, soft, and wet with use, then gradually he's lower, pulling at tired elastic and sleepily finding his way to her, tasting her, letting the slender softness of her pale limbs surround and caress him with tiny fractional quakes and shivers as his tongue and lips build for her a pleasure – centralized low and deep within, dizzying cloudily her dreamy head.

The arousal, the pleasure, the desire, the longing all builds, all mounts, calling them to one another, for fulfillment, for union, but all so stealthily – in quiet, delayed extended stretches of time. Their bodies and the sensations they are capable of eliciting and experiencing are alive and at play, but dulled softly by the senses they never fully call on to awake — each touch, each bend and arc and taste and tug follows only in response to what came before; it is responsive between them, organic and dreamy, no thought required.

There is no frenzy or rush, no pulsing passion demanding immediacy, to be answered, to be quenched. For one night they have the time, the space the security to luxuriate in their explorations of one another, to sleep, and to rest and reconnect and restore. Less than consciously they shut their minds off and surrender to something stiller and secret and longing within them, guiding them to one another. When her first quakes of pleasure subside and his lips return to hers, Beth's fingers grip at the long hair at the back of his neck, and at last he is with her, one, melded as one, her young hips opened and bent to him, her legs wrapped tightly about him, cradling him with such love such care that could never be rivaled, her still-flat torso stretching upwards to his, strong and masculine. Together they move like waves, no exertion spent unnecessarily; they are glued together in that spot, bending and yielding and taking and giving — fluid, endless, constant. Wordless, absolute and assured.

Pleasure builds, comfort builds, desire builds, excitement builds, but nothing shifts, even fractionally, between them; melded so completely are they in that place that binds them. Their hips flex and press, yield and give. Rolling over onto his back he pulls her small body atop his and still that lock that seal never breaks. Though his hands reach to touch her, feel her, grip her, guide her, his eyes never open. Though he loves to see her face — loves to see her flushed and breathing above him in moments such as this — Daryl knows who his love is, knows what she looks like – every shadow of her face; he like she remains blind, mindlessly blocking out one sense in a denial heightening the remaining others. Beth lays herself on him, burying her face in his neck, planting soft wet kisses on his neck beneath his jaw, behind his ear. Beneath her Daryl twists in pleasure and his expression winces and distorts. His solid hands travel the distance of her long thin back and under her touch, her slight weight below her hips, Daryl grips her to him tighter. When an intake of breath stops short and shudders within her, there comes a deep rush and panging in Daryl and he pulls her to him tightly, flipping her over beneath him once more. Every muscle from his ankles to his neck flex and stretch in his efforts to get more completely to her, to meet her in a place so private so secret so safe it can only be known by them two, and Beth gives as much as she is able, opening to him in ways she hadn't known she could and they arch and reach and press and believe and wait and do not breathe do not think do not see only feel and love and trust and then there is a mighty reckoning, an absolute torrent of anticipation realized of love and yearning and faith actualized. Bodies turn stiff and rigid then shudder and implode and collapse into each other in unison.

Daryl sinks into her, never more at peace, never more at home, never more loved. "Sweetheart…" he breathes into her ear.

"Love you," she whispers into his, and their bodies cling to each other tighter. Spent and limpid and messy and tired, they do not move or shift or stir; they lie there, breathing the same air, with the same soft movement of lungs and chests, still as one, still connected, letting each other's re-substantiating bodies fall back into place, come back down to earth, becoming gradually more solid and weighty as the moments slip stilly past them. They would sleep this way, him atop her, her holding him, gratified still by the intimacy of their connection, different as it is though as it changes after completion. When he does pull himself away he takes her arm with him as he rolls onto his side, pulling her against him as he surrenders finally to unconscious sleep.

Breathing heavily Beth holds herself to him, pressing her flushed face against the scars and demons on his back, and closes her eyes to sleep.

The night passes without event. Behind him Beth breathes in deeply, stirring lightly against him. The feel of her slight frame and soft breasts against him, slowly rising and falling as she slumbers, lulls him to sleep, dreamless and quiet _._ In his sleep, as the minutes and hours pass, Daryl pulls Beth's naked body in closer to his own, letting it blanket him in a way he's never found a way to let anyone else before.

The moon travels through the sky and in their claimed bed they shift, and sometimes dream. In her sleep Beth reaches out for his hand, and finding it pulls his arm down closer to her; heavily he follows after, drawing himself into her, tucking her in, holding her tight. Daryl sinks into her and into deep sleep, and one more day ending with the two of them still breathing, and still together.

It is a blessing. As few as they've been in his life, he'd think he'd be quicker to spot them. He sleeps with her, his love, with his lips on her skin. The morning will come quickly, sooner than they like, and then they'll be out the door and back at it, and rest and peace count as everything they have when they have it.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening lovely readers! So nice to hear from all those still reading!! :) (Every time I come back after a break from posting it feels like no one will be there to read it!) So… feeling pretty unsure about this chapter, both in tone/content and placement/timing. Pieces of it are from an old segment I wrote a long time ago, and when I thought about piecing it back into this storyline I was going to try to have it ready for a Feb 14 post (maybe letting myself off the hook a little). That, clearly, did not work out. So now I have this chapter for which I cannot decide if it belongs in my story at all, or maybe just at this moment. :/[M]

Daryl starts and wakes suddenly. His body jolts and his eyes flash around the room, then down at Beth, then follow her gaze back to the door. Everything appears as it should – they're still there, in the bed in the second floor room in the farmhouse. By the sound of it there's no horde of walkers storming the stairs, no group breaking in, but still he reaches out to take up his weapon, only to find it not in reach. His hand drops.  _Stupid._ When he'd carried Beth in to bed he'd left the bow lying on the worn rag rug in the outer room.  _Careless. Thoughtless._ He'd been too wrapped up in her, and's too unused to carrying a crossbow. Quickly he bends and reaches for his abandoned trousers and his hunting knife still belted to them when there's a light pounding on the outer door to the hallway.

"Jus' me," Tom calls from outside. The tension in Daryl's muscles lessens, but still he pulls his knife and sets it in easy grasp on the bedside table aside Beth's crumpled pile of shirts. "Goin' down tuh see what's what," the eighteen-year-old states. "Stay put."

Daryl squints toward the window; it's light out, but the sun's not fully up. It'd be smart to get up, get moving and get back to camp. He should be checking on things at least, alongside Tom, but then Beth touches him. She's watching him, from drowsy thoughtful river-deep eyes. Looking back at her, for what might be the first time - studying her through his own creased soft eyes - he grants himself a pass, and Daryl stays in bed, with her, for at least a little while longer.

The sounds of Tom's steps down the stairs and through the first floor rooms reach up to them through the old plank flooring. Daryl's stomach's gnawing at him already, and he's thinking she too must be hungry; he didn't see her eat much the day before, especially given the distance they traveled. There's food, but none left in the room, and though his stomach growls some — quietly, just enough to remind his body it needs fuel — it's not so loud that it expects to be heeded. He ignores it, choosing her and this bed over food, at least for the present. They can eat while they walk, and they're well trained to bear through hunger pangs. He'll forget it in another moment or two.

Daryl pulls back some from her, letting his eyes adjust, making a little space between, though their legs are entangled still beneath the covers. Though day has broken Beth makes no move to lift her head from the pillow, she just looks at him. Slowly her dimples form the shape of a small smile on her face as she greets him with a faint kiss on his nearby forearm.  _Life looks like this,_  he thinks. Like a pretty girl in the morning light safe and happily tucked into a warm bed, smiling at him, her bony knee pressed somewhere against him in their linen tangle. Something tightly embedded in Daryl's chest swells and beats as he looks at her, his hands wanting badly to reach her.

"Morning." Her long lashes flutter, and somewhere in the room there's the faintest scent of honeysuckle. She looks refreshed after the night's rest, not so worn down and not so pale. The sunshine streaming through the east-facing windows warms the room – if only cerebrally – and sparks something in him. An invigoration he could not have predicted the night before as they mourned the absence of their lost companions courses through him and thoughts of clear fields of tall spring grass bending supplely in the breeze, and buzzing honey bees and full white clouds drifting drowsily through blue skies alive with morning songs of sparrows, wrens, and robins come to mind from out of the blackness.

"Mornin'," Daryl clears his throat and rasps. His attention stays on her. The night before – their long hours of searches, their words, their news, their time together in this bed – linger dreamily in his head, and then their eyes meet, as they sometimes do, in that way when they look at one another and it is known there's been a wordless change that's happened between them. From across a downy pillow they recognize another milestone's been crossed, and this morning, like all the mornings that will follow, is not like the ones before. They are resolved. Together. This child will be a good thing. There will be no differing perspective to take.

Daryl reaches out for her arm and pulls it to him; her soft eyes stay on him, sparkling almost as she delights in the simple study of the shadows of his brow, the lines in face, and the scruff of his beard. She says nothing but he feels the sensation of her five small toes running lightly up the length of his calf. Looking at her, motionless, without so much as a steady blink, Daryl stretches open his silent mouth and chomps down lightly on the limp bend of her wrist. Peering up at her from beneath his crooked brow, with a slow teasingly hungry smile he gnaws momentarily on her flesh, then releases her, letting her hand drop down to the pillow. Daryl yawns largely, breathes in deeply, and resigns himself to the day's work. Stretching first, he pushes himself upright and sniffs, and scratches his beard, "Better get movin'."

There's a clanging, or banging, somewhere within the house, a metallic sounding maybe, in the pipes. They both stiffen and spring to rise when from below there's the call, "s me–" in the tone of Tom's Missouri twang. The likely grin he's sporting is audible on their ears as his instruction to "Stand down" travels up to them. Thereafter follows further sounds, hollow with distant clunkings and clangings.

So spurred by Tom's industry, Daryl rises, stepping easily into his ripped and tattered shorts and trousers. Barefooted, and single handedly fastening his belt, he bends and reaches to lift his shirt from the dust-disturbed floor. Beth, who's been awake longer, makes no move at all. Instead her blue eyes follow him, watching as his muscles shift lightly beneath the tattoos and the scars on his back as he takes up and pulls on his ragged clothes.

"Beth?" he asks, noticing her stillness. "Y'al'right?"

He's stopped dressing and he studies her, not sure how soon she'll be feeling sick, or if it'll even happen. They hardly eat as it is, God knows she can't afford to be getting sick to her stomach. But Beth nods her head, with the faintest hint of a smile; she is all right. She isn't sick, but still she does not rise from the bed. Her eyes stay on him, and her fingers crawl out across the quilt and sheets toward him. She asks him, biting down lightly on her lower lip, "The house still secure?"

Daryl glances at her — with Tom downstairs (and making all that racket) they would no doubt know already if it weren't. His torn shirt still unbuttoned, Daryl, with frayed pants legs underfoot, crosses to the window and with a quick swipe of his index finger tucks back the curtain and studies the road below. He spots walkers, but they're roamers, and few; he trusts they'll keep. No sign of the living. No sign the street is any different than how they left it late last night. Daryl lets the sun-yellowed lace drop from his hand, and turns back to Beth.

With a glance in her direction Daryl picks idly at a loose button on his shirt front and moves toward the antique chest of drawers to raid for clothes before finishing dressing, but, seeing the light on her, his eyes stop, and catch, and he keeps his eyes on her. Still she hasn't moved. Still she's only wrapped in a white flannel sheet. There's another sort of noise with the pipes in the walls but Daryl's attention remains on her — wrapped ethereally in sun-bleached white cotton. She couldn't be more darling, more desirable than she is, laid out in this bed, lit by the morning light as she is, sweetly smiling up at him the way she is. Daryl shakes his head and tugs at the scruff on his chin; he's proving unable to get this day started. Movement is living — staying put is death, but a long morning in bed with her...

Beth, who has not moved at all, choosing instead to sit and wait until he no longer could not come to her, smiles at him, sanguinely. "Hi." She's quiet and soft, and the antithesis of everything beyond the four walls of this room.

His blue eyes flick on her. "Hey," he rasps heavily, so low, nearly inaudible.

A pair of feet tread quickly up the wood stairs then there's a quick slap on the closed anterior door. "Hey, yo. No time for a bath – got garden'n tuh do – but there's runnin' water, should be somewhat warmish in a coup'le minutes. If y'all 're interested." He adds as he mounts the third story stairs, "I'm eatin' the canned carrots. So say g'bye t' those."

The footsteps continue to the third floor and Daryl looks away from the door and back towards Beth. Her eyes are nearly glittering. With a small gesture he accepts the hand she extends to him, and crawls back into bed, and to her. Rolling onto his back Daryl's unbuttoned shirt falls open as Beth presses herself to him, letting him feel her weight gentle upon him, her skin on his. Holding his face to hers she kisses him, his neck, his jaw, his ears, his eyelids. Again there is the fluttering voltage of electricity and spontaneity and life betwixt them. Like so many times before her teeth and lips take hold of his earlobe, as her hands wrap around his, allowing him only fractionally to put them on her where he would like.

When his tongue finds hers, and he's kissing her like he means it, Beth Greene rises from him and allows the sheet she's wrapped in to drop lightly from her shoulders, falling and cascading about her slender thighs and hips. With this before him, though his thoughts and pulse race and erupt, Daryl pulls himself from his fevered train of thought, paces himself, and takes her in: Beautiful as ever. Strong. Tanner, in places, for sure. Happy. She looks happy, and at ease, and – all but for the sheet tumbled atop her lap – utterly exposed for his perusal. She looks down at him with a smile. Beth loves that boyish blink he gets, that look like he's not sure he should be looking. That expression never lasts – it's replaced by so many other expressions: savage desire, absolute domineering self-assuredness, total animal abandon, earnest sobering love, and wicked roguish pleasure, but when he wears this face for her — the one that sometimes still traces across his face after all their time spent solely with each other, the one that says maybe she still isn't his, or shouldn't be, or betrays the boyish part of him somewhere inside, beneath the brawn and the bravado — she loves it. She gives every part of herself to that part of him — the fractured part that needs her most, and takes all the rest of him for her own pleasure.

Beth grips his hands in hers as she sits atop him, watching him watching her, and one by one, never breaking her eyes from his, she kisses his knuckles and the pads of each of ten fingertips. Her growing hair is matted and bent in the back from where she'd slept on it, but in this light it frames her face better than any halo could, almost like her long locks were never cut off but only tied back, and Daryl waits, as she takes her time with him. Over muscles and hair, and bruises and cuts, tattoos and scars, her lips and fingertips journey his chest. When her mouth lifts from him she moves his ready hands to her breasts and holds them to her, breathing in under the feel of his touch. Daryl bites down on the tip of his tongue, silences himself and plays at her game.

Her frame is slight, as are her breasts — her most notable curve is the slope of her waist — but he wouldn't wish her body any way than as it is. It is so Beth — quiet, and soft, and privately alluring. He's at the point now he can hardly think of how he'd managed never having especially noticed her before. She's a knockout, and he'd never seen it, never looked. Now his hands slip down to her hips so that he might admire the view she presents and take hold of what little meat her body carries. Daryl grips her hips, her thighs, her ass, her back. He'd hold on to her all day if he could. He's grinning at her, slow and steady and quiet. He's pleased with the setting he finds himself in, and he grins at her like it's some kind of kept secret that he likes her. In answer Beth leans down over him, and, holding her face just above his, allows her lips just barely to brush over his. So infrequently do they have the time, the space, the security to take things slowly, she will not give it up without first luxuriating in it now, and with the house secured, Tom on watch (or at least some distance removed), and the day still early, he's right along with her for the ride.

As she unfastens his belt and the waist of his pants, though he would rather take her in the moment, or at the very least her lips, or to growl at her to stop teasing, Daryl shifts on his back, repositions her atop him, guiding her by her hips, and grants her free reign to set any pace that suits her. First with her teeth, then her own luscious mouth, she tugs at his bottom lip, but she does not kiss him. Her restraint provokes its intended insatiate effect: Daryl twitches fractionally, alive with sensations and desires, but he does not act, he remains pliant and hers. When she does rise, and is once again sitting straight up astride him, and he's looking into those guileful, adoring large eyes of hers, his mind unwittingly drifts from fucking to fatherhood. She's pregnant, carrying their small – currently indescribably small – child, her body forever changed by his. It's daunting. It seems near inconceivable her slight body can manage such a feat, but he touches her and trusts she will. 'Trust' is not strong enough when it comes to this. He needs to know she can do this – believe that this baby will not be the ending of her. He does know it. He—

"Hey," she smiles at him, pulling him back into the world with her. "Com'ere," she says softly, and pulls him up at the waist towards her. "Put your mouth on me," her voice whispers warmly and bubbly into his ear; his eyes flash — no longer a boy, no longer a spouse harnessed with responsibility, he is a man, in bed with the woman he desires most in the world — and with no further prompting necessary the hunter obliges, and takes her impertinent breast into his ready lips. Daryl lifts his girl up into his arms while she holds his head dearly close to her beating heart.

In short time Daryl lifts Beth from the bed, kisses her and touches her. The hardened tattooed archer turns her in his hands and toward the bed. Beth's girlish giggle trills in his ears and before it fades he kicks her bare foot away from her other and she laughs again as she stumbles unexpectedly forward and into a spread stance against the bed. Behind her Daryl takes her, holding on to her by waist and by breast, and traces his calloused hand up the side of her torso and down again. Cupping her, and lightly spanking her still adolescent ass, building the anticipation for what's to come next, Daryl nuzzles the scruff of his face against the bend in her neck. Beneath his hand he feels her heart beating, ever faster, as her breathing hastens and quickens. She stretches her head back to him, letting his body captivate hers.

Capable of restraint no longer, his breathing heavy with anticipation in sync with her own, Daryl pulls her back by the crook of his arm where it wraps about her, his other hand pressing firmly down on her at the small of her back, pressing her into the mounds of harried bedding, admiring the angles of her body the position presents. In short order he grasps tightly at her around her hips, pressing her flat abdomen down on to him while still he pulls back on her where his hand holds to her collarbone. And there and like this, wrapped about her, holding her close, he takes her fully, simultaneously commanding and surrendering to their enterprise. She's on her toes, barely able to stand without his support as he buries himself within her, over and over again, incessantly, pushing her into a primal rhythm with him. In his strong embrace she encourages him, gripping his hands to her, reaching behind her and pulling at his tangled mangy hair, searching blindly for his lips, hot and hungry and hers. She's afraid she'll cry out the sensations are so overpowering, but she can hardly breathe much less speak or form sounds. Her short quickness of breath, her intoxicating panting and the buoyant movements of her body drive him on and he holds her closer, relinquishes her collarbone in favor of her breasts and steady attention to the space between her legs, rubbing her, taking care of her, making love to her as they draw ever closer to climax — and then— the release, the quick and sudden surrender and capitulation, and he presses himself in even deeper, holding himself firm while she comes, and tenses and shivers and relaxes; exhausting himself in turn, Daryl holds her as she collapses limply into his arms, and presses his hot flushed face to her breathless body.

Sweaty, heated and breathing heavily he scoops her up with a single bend and lifts her again onto the bed. Laying her face down on the bedding, he crawls on top of her, paying no notice to the mess. He lies heavy atop her, feeling his heart pace slow, allowing his breathing to fall in time with hers. Both sweaty and sticky, their skin melds comfortably with one another's as he lies there, his legs on either side of hers. " _Beeeth_ ," he breathes heavily into her ear, and nuzzles his face closer to hers. If he could only hold her like this forever — safe and covered from the world, his to love, his to protect —but he cannot. They must rise, they must move forward, they must return to battle outside before the outside world wars itself to their feet inside this house.

In time, when his body regains awareness of the full weight of his mass, he rolls off her onto his back and listens, as she curls into his chest, holding him close, to the rust screeching rumbling of water pipes filling and running. Above their heads somewhere rushes the unmistakable sound of running water. A shower. Listening dreamily, Beth runs her fingers through his hair, and kisses messily the undercleft of his jaw line. They're paralyzed in bliss. Utterly. In this moment the thought of forsaking this bed and this euphoric embrace is unthinkable. But quicker than she would have thought she's reaching for some scrap of fabric to clean herself with and rising to look for any build of walkers below in the yard.

Peering through the curtains while behind her in the room her lover wipes at his brow and refastens his waistband, Beth keenly scans the street below and the town and roads beyond. The house stands clear — no walkers, no unidentified vehicles. Clear. Overhead the shower still runs.

Returning from the window, still undressed save for the clean pair of undies she's pulled from the chest of drawers and shimmied into as she walks, Beth crosses to the bed, kisses Daryl softly below his navel, then, knife in hand, exits into the anterior sitting room and from there into the hall. "Greene—" Daryl calls after her to remind his sprite-like companion that maybe clothes would be advisable when potentially confronting walkers, or the living – not to mention there's already another person in the house – and that he would have gone himself had she given him just a second more.

Beth walks on, knife at the ready, descending the stairs quietly and makes the rounds on the house – she checks the doors, the windows, and checks all four sides of the house. Nothing is breached. In the kitchen Beth spies the basement door open and tiptoes down the unfinished wood planked steps. The heat and sound of the furnace strike her immediately, and Beth moves closer to the glowing boiler. She's concerned when she thinks what Tom has done in lighting it, worrying there will be a trail of smoke emitting somewhere, calling unnecessary attention to the house, but sees then he's left the flue shut. Ill-advised if they had any intention of staying long in the house, but they'll soon be gone and on the road and heading back to their wooded camp, so what matter if the old rooms fill with smoke? Beth opens the hinged iron door and tosses several more logs into the crackling fire. The quarter-split logs are damp, as is the basement, but they do catch, and the smell is homey, and old but familiar.

Beth re-climbs the steps, does one final check, counting seven walkers in total, one very far off. Seven is not a threat. They can dispatch seven easily when they emerge. Still, upon re-climbing the stairs and reentering the sitting room she takes up the crossbow, carrying it with her in hand in case Daryl judge it best to take any of them out from within the house before they leave.

With pants and shirts on, Daryl's ransacking the room's drawers for what they might need or make use of. There's no TV for a remote to pull batteries from, but he has clothes, for both him and for Beth, matches, a 9V battery from the smoke detector, and—

He stops when he sees her: Bare bodied and armed with a knife and a crossbow. In the moment as he looks at her, studying her with his quite keen eyes, Daryl has no thoughts of the future or supplies or shelter on his mind; for the time, each and every thought is consumed by one image, that of Beth, in the nude, still flushed from their exploits, carrying his loaded crossbow.

"Stop," he commands. She does stop, but because she thought he'd heard something she had missed. Alert, she turns her head, first right and then left, but she hears nothing, save for the water shutting off upstairs; all is as it was. She catches Daryl's eyes for some clue to what she's missed, but it's that sexy dumb conspiratorial grin of his that she finds. And then she understands just why the order came to stop.

Through the strainings of a demure smile she instructs her companion to "Shut up." Saying so, Beth moves to rest the heavy weapon against the dresser.

"No." His weighty voice directs again firmly, "Stop." For the moment, because she isn't tired and doesn't feel ill and she hasn't had to kill a walker for some time and she's enjoyed her time with him in this old room, Beth momentarily does indulge him and does stop, even half popping one hip to the side, and he looks at her, through narrowed dancing eyes. "Damn," he exhales. "Goddamn."

"Quiet," she shakes her head and straightens her stance, unable to take on the compliment full-faced.

"You kiddin'?" he challenges with a chuckle, like she hasn't got a clue about what he's seeing. The archer takes a step forward, "Nobody looks this good." There may come a day when he no longer has her, but this is not that day. Daryl Dixon's eyes are wholly full of her.

"My arms will get tired," she points out dryly.

Daryl nods his head as he approaches slowly; "Mm,hm…" he answers in corroboration.

"'An' eventu'ly it'll get cold."

" _Mm,hm,_ " once again he feigns agreement, his eyes never leaving her figure.

"And—" she starts another protestation, but needs a moment before continuing as his hands are on her and he's kneeling down before her and she must catch her breath "—eventually  _I'll_  get tired."

Holding her, stretching his warm rough hands around her, Daryl kisses her torso. Once, and then twice, and then a third time, slowly and methodically; Beth's footing falters. Reaching and taking the weapon from her, setting it against the tall bureau beside them, without ever removing his lips from her skin, running his hands from her hips down and up again from her thighs to her calves, the lengths of her legs, Daryl teases her for her plight, "That's a sad tale," and spanks her with a single smack. With her hands clutching fondly to his mess of long hair he kisses her once more, where their child is surely growing, then without warning rises, and easily slings her over his shoulder and carries her to the bathroom. Beth laughs, but does not protest, and thinks, as he delivers her into the shower with decently warmish running water, that life, can still be good, and pleasure and laughter still possible to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so there we go - on the smut factor for this chpt: Guilty as charged. (Is that a #sorry or a #sorrynotsorry?)


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooooo!!! It's been slow and frustrating coming back from the next few chapter drafts being lost (still feel this chapter's shaky), and I want to apologize for taking so long to post, but THANK YOU to all the readers that have stuck around in the interim! Hope you are well!!

"That's the thing 'bout these old houses—" Tom asserts lightly, reaching back behind him and pushing shut the door to the smoky kitchen behind them "—built long 'fore our time, lastin' through this one." His hand runs absently through his still damp mop of hair as he returns to his work, "Well water and wood-burnin' boiler; can't beat off-the-grid livin'. Here—" he gestures "—tie that tighter there."

Rising to her knees from the wood-plank floor Beth reaches and pulls more tightly on the nylon twine binding their cargo in place. Their several hours of rest and indulgent start to the morning proved transformative and the three of them, all three freshly showered and in a combination of old and newly claimed garments, work briskly, gathered in the hallway sorting their haul. The items they'd worked all the night before to amass need to be prioritized, abandoned, condensed, bundled and packed. They need to reduce weight and bulk wherever they can, they need to reduce the amount of waste they pack into camp, and they need the things they bring to serve as many purposes as possible. They have to be smart as they pack; they have a long distance to cover so weighted down, and they must be able to shed what they carry quickly if confronted with walkers — if confronted with anything that ends with them running.

For the trek home they give up on the wheeled suitcase they'd used in their house-to-house runs the night before; it has poor weight distribution and will never make it over the uneven terrain of the woods. They pack instead a metal-wire personal shopping cart, one with wheels that look as though they were made for sand, and also a jogging baby stroller, built almost for off-roading. Two will push carts while the third, alternating as they need, assures their path, clearing, culling and scouting.

"Lose that," Beth directs Daryl when she sees him handling a Maglite flashlight she'd grabbed out of a garage. "We don't have the batteries, an' we've got enough for blunt force without it."

"Could use it f'r a suppressor…" Daryl looks at it, weighing it heavy in his hand, but his mind does not linger on it long. "Don't fit anythin' we've got—" He drops it behind him; the dense metal of the forsaken flashlight hits the floor heavily with a rolling kind of thud. Glenn was the one to hold onto things until they proved useful, to scavenge and pack with hope; Daryl keeps his eyes on what's in front of them, now, and moves on to sorting other gear. Their work is quick, like they're under some gun, but having made it through the night without incident they're all together less wary than they were the night before; in the morning light their hurry to depart trumps the caution that starkly guided their shadowed movements through the darkened town. Stealth had been the watchword, now, with a quiet night behind them, they're governed by speed, and though in the darkness drawers and cabinets and doors were opened with the utmost care for noise reduction, now things are being dropped and discarded with little regard for the clamor.

"Eh'vrybdy took the cans an' jars," Beth says, pausing her work to wipe her brow, "but left the dry goods; 's not much, but we've got beans, n' flour, n' mixes, n's grains."

"People're thinkin' short-term then; grabbing whut they could use on th' go." Tom considers the artistically packaged souvenir sack of scone mix he's got resting heavily in his hand, "Nob'dy thought it'd last this long; nob'dy was thinkin' of bakin'. Ev'rybody was on the run." He pulls off the gingham ribbon tie and stuffs the sack into the cart's growing packed load, "Lucky, 'cuz now we're still findin' things to grab. A year or some more... t'won't be nuthin' lef' 'round tuh fin'. No grains, nuthin' refined, or processed, or stored. All paleo—"

While he talks, more to himself than to his companions, Beth stops; something in her stops her. Her eyes fall shut for half a beat longer than an extended blink, her face scrunches, and she winces through the light headedness. Momentarily she's able to focus, she swallows, and, unnoticed by her companions, she breathes in, concentrates, and resumes her task. Sufficiently recovered from the spell, her deft hands work with diligent dexterity to pack and sort and load. She breathes through her mouth, keeps her head up, and works. Beside her Tom transfers the dry goods to ziploc bags, waiting till camp to combine the many nearly-empty sacks of flour and meal and mixes. For now it's small bags, light, and easy to spread throughout their goods. "We'll carry most of 'em on us," he says as he uses one bag pinched as a spout to pour into another. "If it comes to it an' we hav'tuh cut an' run, leastways we'll have the dry stuff." Beth tears open a bag of black-eyed peas and does the same, pulling out a pair of clean socks from the pile of clothes, she pours each foot full of beans, then ties the ends together for a kind of yoke to hang about the neck, knotting each foot midway to disperse and even the weight. Everything that can be is packed in layers — light and balanced enough to keep them mobile, allowing for dexterity and quick evasions. Sooner or later, they will have to run.

"Beth—" Tom stops his packing and holds up a metal kitchen contraption for her to judge. Dryly he looks at it as in the air it splits open at the hinge and one half of it drops heavily down from its center. "You want this?"

Beth looks, then nods, "Mm,hm."

But he doesn't move to pack it, and instead eyes it impassively where it hangs, "What 's'it?"

"A ricer." She continues packing, tucking clothing into blankets and rolling them as tightly as possible, using both her knees and the balls of her hands to keep the pressure on as she rolls and binds.

Tom looks from the oversized press to her, then flips the device like a nunchuck with detached nonchalance, "You bringin' it f'r cookin' or as a weapon?" Inspecting it closer, he asks with passive incredulity, "We need it?" Daryl — who's testing the condition of the wheels and their bearings, greasing them with baby oil and checking the tire pressure — stays out of the deliberation; he trusts Beth not to be frivolous in her choices.

"It's not essential," she concedes, her hands never ceasing their work, "but it'll be nice to have. Chuck it, if there's no room."

Tom inspects it, the old metal heavy in his hand, "It more important than the mortar an' pistol?"

"No," she shakes her head again. Tom shrugs and drops the thing into the pile for the second cart; they're trying to be frugal with space and with weight — not only for the journey back, but also for the realities of living in open space on their small stretch of land — but some things prove to have unknown worth.

In quick time they three shift things around, pack and repack, weigh and redistribute weight. Three backpacks, with blanket rolls tethered beneath, are packed, on top of which Daryl fashions an additional makeshift shoulder pack to carry, not trusting with any certainty they'll make it back to camp with more than what's on their body. Contents are packed based on priority, bulk, and weight. What is most dispensable and oversized goes into the wheeled pushcarts — clothes, blankets, cushions, two sub-zero sleeping bags, the insulation, toilet paper rolls, non-absolute tools and heavy foods and liquids such as the sack of flour and bottle of bleach. In the shoulder pack Daryl will carry are the essentials — over the counter painkillers, salt, pepper, vitamins, batteries, what little ammo they found, and more. In the packs each will carry goes the food, the essential tools, essential clothes items, and all miscellaneous gear and supplies. Into Beth's waistband and Tom's go the two handguns they uncovered; into the shopping cart goes the old shotgun, and strapped to the stroller a signed Louisville Slugger broken out from a glass case above a desk in some bourgeois home office, and a rusting but still lethal garden machete.

As the packs grow and bulge, Daryl weighs and reweighs Beth's, each time pulling more from it, packing the supplies instead into his own or Tom's. He leaves room in the red canvas cart as well, figuring, considering her fatigue the day before, she may well end up pushing more of her load than shouldering it. He does the shifting definitively, without words, and without ceremony, leaving no invitation for Beth to protest or for Tom to take note. They finish, surrounded by circles of discarded plastics, bags, clothing, and objects.

Handling his knife at his belt, his expression squared and firm, Daryl looks to the two eighteen-year-olds as they use fishing line to finish securing the bulk in the packed carts. "Stay here," he grunts, shouldering his bow, "gimme cover, I'll clear the streets."

Two pairs of eyes flash immediately up at him. "Naw," Tom shakes his shaggy head, "don' think so, Cap'in." He glances at Beth then back at Daryl, "We move out t'gether."

"Nuh,uh," Daryl's gravelly voice is short-winded and resolute. "Stay here." His eyes narrow as he peers out the boarded window, "I'll circle back."

"No," Beth asserts, straightening herself. "We all go."

Daryl unslings the bow and in answer crosses to the door. "Ain't a discussion. Won't be long." He lifts the table blocking the front door, looks once at the two he's leaving behind, then turns his eyes outdoors, scans, and steps out into the light.

Behind him Beth and Tom block the door once more then armed with guns move to the windows to cover him. Focusing down the scope of the shotgun, ready to take fire, Tom shrugs in the interim of action, "Feelin' a little second rung."

Beth doesn't answer, her attention is held steadfast on Daryl and on the movements of the street. She sees him fire a bolt but from her vantage point she can't see at what. His eyes move to the windows they stand behind and his hand motions softly at his hip to signal them to stay put, then out comes his blade and Daryl drives it into two walkers roaming through the street. Beth breathes a little easier knowing it's the dead out there he's fighting, but her finger stays lithe on the trigger and her eyes alert, trained and wary. She never takes a shot, Daryl does not linger long in their range of vision; they wait. Stealthily surveying the surrounding streets, Daryl ducks round corners, listens, and watches. There are walkers, but not many, and still no sign of the living.

In minutes, glistening with sweat and splattered some with thick black blood, Daryl returns with a whistle and a signal for the all-clear. Hastily Tom shoves the table aside and lets him in. Wiping his brow, Daryl steadies his breath and his eyes fix on her. He looks at her, tousles Beth's hair, and then they're at it, pulling on their packs. They collect the carts, turn their minds from what resources may still be stored up in the town, and ready to leave the house to first explore the neighborhood gardens closest to the woods, then return to them and make their way back to camp.

"Uh, uh," Daryl crosses to her and her pack as she pulls it on.

Fastening the strap clip at her waist, her face lifts to his, "It's not too heavy."

Ignoring her he tugs on her pack and pulls from it another two cans of something and a jar of spicy mustard. Lifting Beth's pack again he measures the difference the adjustment made; she doesn't have to object, it's her look he answers, "You know," he re-zips the bag still harnessed to her back, "you haven't walked any with it. Rested up and standin' still f'r five minutes ain't the walk we've got ahead of us."

"I love being infantilized," she smiles innocuously. "And you know just how 'rested' I am."

"Clever ain't ya?" he smirks dryly, then tightens and readjusts her shoulder straps.

"If you say so," she answers, and checks the knife at her hip.

"You're small, 's whut'chy're," he tells her. "Not sayin' y'can't carry your weight, but it should be you're weight."

"I'll take 'em." Tom presses past them with the stroller and his pack, "Le's g't going."

Daryl hands off the foodstuffs and shoulders the crossbow over the backpack and shoulder bag he wears. Beth checks her firearm, adjusts her straps and ties tightly the knotted stuffed socks around her waist and makes for the door with the marketing cart.

"Hey—" Daryl's sharply gruff voice stops her "—pretty girl." He reaches out and grasps her wrist as she passes him toward the door; he tugs her back to him. Never minding Tom's proximity, Daryl ducks his head down some toward hers, his eyes searching her face to meet with hers. "Want you usin' yer head out there." Beth looks at him through her clear wide eyes, but he isn't distracted by her youthful ingénue innocence; his grip remains fixed and he looks at her sternly. "Take care o' yerself."

She looks at him, and when the look he's giving her doesn't let up she gives him a smile and pulls away, "Yes, Sir."

"Naw, Beth," he shakes his head brusquely and follows after the steps she takes. "Uh, uh, you don't get t' be flip, not walkin' out the door." He ducks in front of her and looks at her, "Ya hearin' me, Girl?" He holds her gaze. "You gotta say it."

Beth studies him, his rugged face directing her to be careful like he's never done before — she knows why, why he's under-packing her bag and leaving her behind while he clears and why he isn't letting things rest with a sassy retort, but they can't stay where they are: they have a job still to do and a trip back to make, and there's no two ways of getting back; there's never been a heightened state of  _careful_ – circumstances have altered, but there's no taking any more care than she always has; she can't be any less of their team – the change is in her body, not the world, survival still requires all it ever has, and she has even more now to fight for — quietly, solemnly, Beth leans in to him some. Lifting herself slightly on her toes, she blinks, and the light flutter of her dark lashes is disarming, as is the coolness of her small voice. "I promise." His words spoken, slowly her mouth turns up some in the shape of a smile, sweet, and almost demure with the faintest showing of her dimples, "I will be careful." Saying the words didn't make her, or the child, any safer, and it didn't change the fact that with only three of them she'll no doubt be actively integral to their safe return, but knowing this she said them for him, knowing assuredly the time will come she'll ask the same words of him. It's her love for him that says the words he asked for, but it's her fondness for who they are and where they've come from that speaks the "Mr. Dixon" once she's back on her heels again and letting flash an actual smile.

Appeased but taunted, his head shakes in answer, " _Shut'up_ ," and he pushes her back and out of the way so that he will exit first.

Back on the streets, armed, packed heavy and pushing the stroller and the cart, they make their way through the quiet streets ducking in and out of gardens where they can find them. There isn't much. Beth digs up some onions, loveage, horseradish and radicchio. In the overgrown kitchen garden out back behind the blue house with the large bay windows she smells the peppermint on him as her lover reaches across her to dig up the roots of the artichoke plant. Daryl's muscles strain some as he pulls the firmly rooted plant toward him to expose some opportunity for their hands to dig. So near her as he is he smells like Daryl: like clean sweat and the woods, with traces of the peppermint soap they'd showered with. In the shower they'd shared the amber detergent had made their skin tingle and burn, and under the warmish running water and the sharp sensation of the liquid soap they'd felt singularly alive, clean and refreshed. It's a different sort of invigoration that keeps them active now — every minute the sun moves closer to it's eventual setting and nightfall, they have a rendezvous to make and their own and others' unease and apprehensions to dispel. The clock is ticking.

Below the topsoil the earth they dig into is cold and wet and shakes off the roots of their transplants like heavy clods of snow. Beth, knees wet with dirt, hands and face layered with soil, opens her backpack to shove in the carefully wrapped roots of a hefty rhubarb plant that has gone to seed.

"Greene—" Daryl steps over the gaping garden holes "—give it here." He lifts the plant from her hold and wedges it into the nylon pouch at the base of the jogging stroller. Behind him an impaled walker limps in through the hedges and Tom stands and with a sure and weighty swing bashes in the head with the wooden bat. When the thing falls immobilized Daryl's raspy voice breaks the silence, "C'mon," his head jerks, "gotta get a move on."


	32. Chapter 32

They returned to the woods with more than a dozen uprooted plants hung from and tied to the carts and packs; provided they all survive the transplanting they won't be any start to a farm, won't sufficiently supply the camp, but they'll add some nutrients, provide some variance and lessen the demand for scavenging and straying far from camp. Their bodies and carts are weighted down, but getting out of town without more than a skirmish with a small pack of walkers and a couple roamers, and never a sign of the living, lightens the load some as they make their way back.

Retracing their path, pushing the stroller and grocery cart over the uneven ground, trying the keep the pace tight while they're still rested, they talk, about showers and warm water, actual mattresses and the feel of clean clothes. They talk about the luxuries of the houses they moved through – upholstered armchairs, carpeted floors, soaps and barbecues, second stories and third stories, doors to lock, windows to bolt and barricade, books, and games, and instruments, and toilets, and walls. They talk about all the ways 'luxury' has been redefined, but they do not linger on the losses. This run feels like a win, the risk paid off, and they know enough to keep it in that light.

The trek back is slower though than their journey out; under their burden they stop several times more for rest than they had the day before, but still they make good time, anxious to return to camp, to be home, to rejoin the other six. Conversation drifts to camp repairs, and future projects, recipes to try and invent with the increase of ingredients, but their cargo winds them, and a low profile is always safest, and their voices quiet as their bodies move forward with the power of muscle memory and perseverance.

Tom though, the further they travel, can't let silence settle too long; the longer they're out their, making their way back, the more he's set on edge. With the biggest risk of their run behind them, other thoughts come in. He keeps up the idle conversation to distance himself from the uncertainty of the others' fates – Rob, John, Pete, all of them. Not liking to run the numbers on the odds that all three groups come out untouched, he rambles. "Ya'll," he starts, saying nothing more until he feels both Daryl and Beth have awarded him their interest and attention, "I'm not gonna lie: I'm lookin' forward to that mac n' cheese." He grabs a small branch down and snaps it. "Might've tasted like cardboard b'fore, but I'll take mac n' cheese any way I c'n get it now." His delivery's passively enthusiastic, but he's just passing time, breaking up the monotony through which anxiety creeps, trying to elicit a laugh or a smirk, a distraction to keep the pace up and the tension off. "An' stale cream cookies? I'm all about it; gonna dip 'em right into m' macaroni. Go full-on Walter Cunningham Jr. on it."

Daryl readjusts his grip on the crossbow where it lays across his cart, keeps his eyes pealed, and keeps moving. He isn't in a mood, but Tom's buoyant humor mostly misses its mark with him. Beth though, scoffs appreciatively after the fact.

" _To Kill a Mockingbird_ ," she says with a nod. "I get it."

The books of the past, the world of school and art and literature and history, it isn't all gone, it lingers in their collective memories along with the existence of cell phones and jet planes and working gas pumps and grocery stores and hospitals. Traces of these things work themselves in, sometimes in the strangest ways. The old life is over, but it isn't all gone — boxed food, ninth grade reading assignments, they're not wholly forgotten.

They walk on, taking time to drink, to rest and to eat. Beth is flushed and her brow and neck glisten with sweat, and at one point it takes near a quarter of an hour of rest and shade before she's able to rise and continue, but she never falters under the weight of her pack, and they keep going. When a huddle of walkers scramble after them her knife makes quick work of one of them and she moves on to another until Tom swoops in with the bat and takes the creature out for her. When there's but two left for Daryl and Tom to take down she steps away from the carnage, quickly; the foul rotten stench they've grown to live with assaulting her with new fetid severity. Beth gags, but she does not get sick. She walks on, letting the breeze find her face as she breathes in, and adjusts herself to the realities these heightened senses mean for her now. She thinks of Lori… She tires to recall how long these early symptoms last... Beth drinks, and makes for home. Eventually night falls, and their progress lags as they more with caution to insure they stay on course, not missing their mark.

In the darkness, it's not the island Tom leads them to; they're a half-mile off, upstream, when he makes the call, a low whistle making the sound of a whippoorwill. There's a moment of silence, then the call is answered, and then Rob's jumping down from his perch, tackling Tom with back slaps and laughter. His appearance from virtual darkness is followed by John and Simon both dropping from their triangulated positions in the trees from where they'd watched, and waited. Their's was the first group returned, all three boys present and accounted for.

Seeing them, knowing she Daryl and Tom are not the only ones to return, pent-up knotted tension dissipates as the fear she never realized she'd been carrying allays. Beth breathes in relief; with every step they'd trudged through the falling shadows of the woods she'd dreaded coming back to find an empty camp, to huts that that would never again be filled. Having to wait countless hours for the returns of their companions, having to worry, and count the odds, and replay every scene of violence she's encountered in her head until their return — she hadn't known that weight had been with her all the while, carried heavier on her shoulders than her pack of clothes and food and tools. She hadn't known she'd faltered.

But they did not return to find themselves alone, others had made it back; six of their nine, as a start. She is thankful; she is relieved. There has been too much loss already. Beside her she senses a similar release in Daryl, in all of them — an unacknowledged haunting evaporating from them. A head count of six is good. It is a start. It's enough to return to camp. River stones are left in the three watch perches to signal they're back in camp, and then they and their gear are on the move, downstream to reclaim huts and hearth.

Tom's on Rob in an instant bear hug as they walk back, then on Simon and John, the four of them jostling and shoving each other through the woods and to camp like a litter of puppies. It's John who leaps the river and throws down the bridge planks for the others to haul the gear over. The boys brought back two guns, several batteries, two fishing rods, a cooler full of collected food, three books, an ax, a can of spray paint, some fresh clothes, a little medicine, matches, an old pipe and a stale pouch of tobacco, netting, wire, miscellanea, and, more rare than food, more rare than weapons, nearly four gallons of gas in a portable canister. With brisk, if weary, efficiency, the goods are carted and carried in then set aside for another time.

Home again, Simon only hesitates a second or two before he hugs both Daryl and Beth. Daryl lets it happen, though he doesn't exactly lean into it. While Beth's wrapped up in her hug Daryl pulls her pack from her, gently pulling it from her shoulders and dropping it to the ground at his feet. He slaps handshakes in turn with the other two, happy as anyone to see them all still all right. For her part Beth smiles warmly, but she does not venture the extra several feet it would require to give them hugs or take their hands. She sits, and once immobile visibly melts in place.

Though they hadn't stayed, Simon John and Rob had stopped through camp at just about dusk. They'd dropped their haul and set some beans to soak and stacked kindling for a fire. Now with quick work they set themselves to lighting the fire and prepping some veggies and Daryl's two squirrels. Within ten minutes the cast iron Dutch oven is set over the growing flames. Beth, exhausted, stares blankly into the red and yellow-orange flames licking round the sides of the lidded onyx pot, and waits. The fire should have been allowed to build and die down to low flames before the pot was put on; the stew should simmer over an even-burning flame, but that's not a time frame anyone's willing to wait for at this point. They're tired, and they're hungry, and it will take enough time to cook as it is. Famished, and drained, Beth curls into herself right there in the dirt and lies in a ball waiting for the meal, unconvinced if she made it to her bed she'd ever get up again to eat. In her fatigue the hard-packed earth of the shoal, close to the fire, is a comfort, it is enough. Tired as she is may elect to never budge from that spot again, save for the certainty she'll have to get up to relieve herself; if nothing else, her bladder is starting to tell her she is assuredly pregnant.

Eyeing her lying there, Daryl grabs a sweater and crouches to tuck it under her for a pillow. While the others exchange accounts, drink cool river water and take stock of weapons, Daryl digs out one of the nylon sleeping bags and lays it over her unzipped. She thinks she makes the effort to smile before she scrunches into it and turns over onto her other side, away from the billowing gusts of smoke blowing sharply into her face, but the effort may only have been in her head. Though the smoke burns her eyes, as well her throat and nose, and the heavy smell of it fills her lungs and turns her stomach making her ill, she lacks, for the moment, the energy that would allow her to stir from this spot to another. Awake but dozing, Beth lies still, distantly listening to the voices of her group. Just feet away, always in a comforting proximity, their familiar voices mix and overlap as they prepare the meal. Stories of the two runs are exchanged, the resulting quarries are itemized and evaluated, and they wait for their dinner, wait for the remaining three. The night grows heavy and dark beyond her eyelids …

His voice is warm and raspy through the dark, "'ll put up the insulation t'morrow." Daryl's carried her from the fire to their hut and would have laid her in bed if the low roof would allow it, but all he can do is set her on her feet and support her as she wakes, and crawls slowly in through the opening. It's warm there, below the earth, snug, and home. She crawls in, across the bedding, noticing he must have worked on the space while she'd slept by the fire. It's mostly the same as she'd left it, but beneath the layers of covers the plastic ground-lining is more complete, and the cushions she'd chosen are laid out to cover the expanse of the trench, followed by their growing mounds of blankets, sleeping bags and a pillow. In terms of 'traveling light' this might be an epic fail, but even given having just spent a night in an actual bed, in a real bedroom, this hut feels to her now the epitome of comfort and coziness. When she nestles in it's unreal how soothing it is, how comforting, how cushioned and covered and cocooned she feels. Her room at home, her room at the prison, she'd spent a long time missing them, a long time wishing for them again, for something to take their place; a hole in the ground was never what she'd looked for, it won't be enough in the long run, it won't be enough when the baby comes, but her head drops immediately to the pillow, and it, and the bedding, and the roof, they're enough for now.

His face is close to hers as he crouches over her, "Happy?" His warm breath brushes her face. Beth can only muster the slightest nod of her head against her pillow, but he sees it, and it's enough. "'m taking first watch with Rob; there's water in a mason jar right here, an' some crackers if you need em, an' when it's done, if ya want it, there'll be something hot; an' — there's another jar if you need it, if ya can't get up."

"I'm okay, Daryl," she mumbles into her pillow. "Jus' tired..."

"Tired's real," he says as he makes for the exit. "Don't be a hero. Anyway, it's there if ya need it," and he drops the entrance curtain and leaves her to sleep.

Outside, the others huddle in around the kitchen fire, eating, resting, and waiting. The night stretches out around them, the stars shift their positions, and the waiting is long. They could busy themselves, they could break down the carts and packs, sort through the food and supplies and store them away, but they're not looking for a job, or a distraction; waiting, is what they're doing.

Slowly, one by one, the others succumb to sleep. The watch is kept by two through the night, and the others retire and rise as they must. Beth rises early, she stretches her back and stokes the fire. She relieves herself down river, then collects three fish from the river trap. The boys rise, each in their time, and another day in camp starts, three still not home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love hearing from you, thank you for reading!!


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading, would love to hear from you, feedback makes it worth it! xx

Beth and Daryl kept their secret for another few days. It was past sunset, and closer to late evening the day after their own return when they finally heard the whistle sounding through the trees. Their progress home had been slow, and they had had to make several reroutes to avoid a roaming herd and signs of a transient encampment; their run and their road home had been dangerous, with several close calls, but the third group, Pete James and Michael, made it back, alive. James' whole right side is covered in bruises and road rash – the abrasions running from his face to his arms and torso – the consequence of an evasive maneuver he made to clear a blockade and shake the horde that had been closing in on him. Michael's shoulder was dislocated and popped back in, and Peter had twice had to repair a puncture in his front tire, but they made it back, not one had been lost. A muted stiffness had taken over camp in the lengthy hours that stretched between the arrivals of the first two groups and the third; it lifted when the three made it back over the river. First the waiting and then the reunion governed the ongoings of the camp, as have the refurbishments and preparations for winter. Their news could wait. But when Beth's stomach involuntarily emptied itself while she accompanied Simon on a run to check the traps, gagging at the smell of walkers as they passed, it seemed like it was necessary to share the news. If the pregnancy is to affect the camp, their operations, make anyone a weak link, or impact or jeopardize any encounters with walkers, that information needed to be shared.

They waited for dinner.

The faces in the camp — though become loved — are not the faces Beth had ever imagined relaying this news to. But there are no longer parents, no longer siblings, no longer second-family friends. They're all gone, slain or scattered, and these faces, these young adolescent faces she's known for just weeks, they are what is left.

It was a strange endeavor, speaking this truth outside of family. Though she'd always wanted a child of her own she'd never thought it'd be her with this news, in this world. She'd witnessed it with Lori, she'd dreamt it for Maggie, but never for herself. It seemed too impossible — each of them finding love after the fall, starting new families after their first one collapsed. Though she was growing, Beth had felt a certain arrested development within the prison, within the group — kept young, kept the near-child, by those who needed the comfort that such things as youth, and innocence still could be. There was a sense she got that if they could not protect and nurture it within themselves, they could do so in her. Rick, her father, Michonne, Sasha, even Glenn and Maggie. Maybe everyone but Zach and Carl had seen her that way. She hadn't minded so much — it felt safe, and it was one more way she could contribute to the group — but it'd kept her from imagining a full life for herself. She'd wanted a child for herself one day, before all this, but then she had Judith. She'd wanted a partner to love and be loved by, but she had her father, and Maggie and Glenn, and all the others. It had been enough. She'd made her plans for others because it cost too much to have expectations for herself, plans that could never come true. Boyfriends were lost, homes burned down and laid waste to, hostages and killings and accidents and heartbreaks. It was safer to stay removed. But there is no thing as  _safe._  And planned or not, she did find a love, a partner; and a child and a new family is coming to them, through the ashes of all they've lost. And now as it happens there is no father, no Maggie, no Glenn, no Judith or prison family, just her. And Daryl. And the baby. And the only ones to tell are the faces round the fire.

These seven had come together as young men and boys — even the oldest of them still dependent upon his parents, on the structural systems of university and dorm life; most of them still in school, still at home, still virgins — and in their time together they have grown; they have seen things and done things and outgrown things and learned things and lived without things and all but given up on certain things. Over time, after outliving so many, finding a mate, a person to be with, closer than a comrade, closer than a brother, in this world, became a prospect so foreign, so distant a fading dream as would be a world without walkers, without hunger and destruction, as would be a world without chaos and danger as its central components. Here in the woods alone, pocketed and insulated from the larger violent world, they have managed to fashion an assemblage of a life of relative peace and comfort, but ever still though it is a barren life, devoid of any future but one — with any grace of luck and chance — strung together of another series of days and months just like the ones they find themselves in now. Brotherhood was the family they built, it is the family they have; trust and bonds are the means they have for expansion. Beth changed that.

Not one of them had seen her as a viable opportunity, it wasn't why they brought her in, but her news, it affects them, differently for each one. It's a thing they don't know exactly how to hear, or how to respond to. After it was spoken, nobody got into the long term:  _Will they stay? Can they stay? What is safe? What is smart?_  They let it lie, there is time. Some conversation happened, but before long they dispersed, everyone to their tasks, the camp seeming to take it in stride. Dishes needed washing, traps needed checking, kindling needed gathering, and the perimeter needed walking and monitoring.

"A baby?" the voice is sunken and unguarded. From behind her Simon steps softly over a log and mutely takes a seat beside her at the fire where she scrubs the meal's food scraps into the flames. The night is quiet, the others still in camp have gone to bed or gone down to the river; it's just them, having already collected the meat grease and stored it in a jar. Beth's eyes rise from the embers and she looks at him, and nods. Simon rubs at his eye, "Didn't see that comin'."

"No," Beth agrees.

In the dimness, just beyond the reaches of the dancing circle of light thrown by the fire, Simon worries his fingers, interlocking them in and out, picking at cuts and scars. His head lifts. "You scared?"

Beth finishes her work and puts aside the pots and plates to later rinse in the stream, "I try not to be scared."

The boy nods, concluding, "There are better things to be. Brave," he offers, "for one."

"Hopeful," Beth volunteers.

"Determined."

She smiles distantly, looking into the past, past all the hurt and violence and loss straight to something good. Her eyes go soft, "My father was all those things."

Simon looks, studying her profile as her memories take hold of her expression, mindful that he not look too long, that he does not transgress that private arena of memory and family and mourning. Beth now and then will mention her father, but they've all noted the way she and Daryl dance around the subject of him. Something happened, something dark, something worse than a walker death. He bites at his thumbnail, then swallows. The fifteen-year-old glances at her and then at his feet. "You're all those things." He scratches his face, strangely uncomfortable with this kind of candor. "Baby will be too."

Like Beth's, his focus gets lost in the fire.

In the interim of conversation his shoulders slump, and Simon's head settles slowly into his palm. He doesn't say more, but the boy's fingers pick idly at his ear-length white-blonde hair, methodically, distracted. He's finding himself ill at ease, without the self-awareness of knowing why. This unexamined reaction — the dull ache of something missing, the dichotomy of hope, and fear, and something else… It fills him, threatening to overpower him, though he does not know it for what it is. The boy is at a loss for his reaction, unable to keep from sinking into inscrutable melancholy. He lives in death, they all do; they've had to reconcile themselves to it. But life? New life… amongst all this death… A possibility of something beyond death and living in the shadows of a fallen world? It complicates a world he'd thought he'd come to terms with. The toll is heavy, and nebulous.

He looks up when a friendly slap on the back jostles him from his abstraction. Michael drops kindling for the morning fire by the pit then drops himself beside his friend. As Mike says something or other to Beth about a redesign for the fire pit, Simon's shoulders begin to shake imperceptibly. So uncontrolled is he over his reaction to the news. The torrent of unexamined emotion takes him by surprise, and a wave of shame strikes down hard on him, aggregating his confusion and upset.

Though he's in no state of mind to, he wouldn't be able to name the trigger if he were; it isn't sadness, anxiety or envy. The thought of a baby, of never being a father himself, of life continuing around him and without him — it haunts him.  _Could there be a future they hadn't thought to prepare for?_  S _hould they be doing more than just waiting around, biding time in the forest? Is their survival of seven not nearly enough?_ He's buoyed some by the strong genial arm Mikey claps around him, pulling him in tightly, wholly impervious to Simon's embarrassment at needing to be comforted.

Under the weight of his forest brother's arm Simon's muffled trembling quietly settles, and the three stare into the darkness as the stars emerge above, all the while Michael keeps his arm strong and steady about Simon's shoulders, jostling and patting him as he does. When he feels another shudder take over, Michael takes a breath and starts a song, averting his eyes to save his friend face, and smiling distantly instead into the burning embers.

 _A year from now, we'll all be gone_ —

His voice is low and heavy, and warm like the fire. Beth's eyes raise and look to him, but easy-going Michael and his clear ringing baritone remain in the moment; he buddies up and sings.

_All our friends will move away,_

_And they're goin' to better places_

_But our friends will be gone away._

The song is sad, and sweet, and forged with nostalgia and longing. Beth recognizes the tune, she knows this song she thinks, peaceful and quiet and blue. The words come back to her as he carries the tune, strong, and insistent, like life _._

_Nothin' is as it has been,_

_And I miss your face like hell;_

Faces, names, stories, they find their ways into these three between the spaces of the lyrics. Memories flood, but still Simon breathes in, soothing himself somehow in their gloom—

_And I guess it's just as well,_

_But I miss your face like hell._

_Been talkin' 'bout the way things change_ —

The cadence and emotion builds, and the catharsis is not lost on Beth, for whom it's been so long since she's wept, or sung, or mourned—

_My family lives in a different state;_

_If you don't know what to make of this_

Mike's head and foot bob with an extended enjoyment of the beat—

_Then we will not relate._

_So if you don't know what to make of this,_

_Then we will not relate._

_O-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh,_

Low, and deep, and steady, Michael's solemn chanting haunts the night —

_O-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh, o-oh oh_

_Rivers and roads,_

Their song is somber, and heartfelt, and alive —

_Rivers and roads,_

— in its darkness it is emboldening, strong, and resilient. It's been so long since Beth has sung, and it is a balm to her spirit, the same as it is for Simon.

_Rivers 'til I reach you._

As Beth takes up the chorus, bolstered some by Simon, Michael continues the lonesome wailing chanting, over and over, till it reverberates through their hearts —

_Rivers and roads,_

_Rivers and roads,_

_Rivers 'til I reach you._

_Rivers and roads,_

_Rivers and roads,_

_Rivers 'til I reach you._

As the notes fade into ether, Simon wipes brusquely at his eyes and breathes in. " _Fuck_ ," he mutters. Tightly gripped fists press at his forehead, then the shape of something like a smile emerges. He sniffles, and breathes in, and lets it go. All things must be endured.

"It'll be okay," she affirms softly, in the darkness. The dying fire pops and cracks. "We're all going to be okay."

Simon nods. There's no reason to cry.

They linger there in the quiet, as if in a spell. Then in the dying light, Michael spies the ropey scars on Beth's wrist. He blinks, and waits a minute, then asks with a nod, "What's that?"

Beth looks down, her eyes following his; fractionally her wrist shifts, and her bracelets drop into place. Her eyes drift to the fire. "Another life."

Her companions allow the reality to settle, then Simon takes heart, a kind of wry boyish look appearing on his face as he sniffs away the traces of a tear, "Th _a_ t's another life." He nods towards Beth's abdomen. He laughs slightly at himself as he makes a final brush at his eyes, but Beth feels strong, and revived. Michael pats his comrade on the back and musses his hair.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Rivers & Roads" song by The Head and the Heart.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, just a teeny chapter... Thanks for all the support! xx

" _Bethela_!" James makes the leap over the upper river border with a shovel, a pickax, and a tool belt, greeting her with an exaggerated Yiddish accent, " _Mother of a generation_!"

" _Shut up_ —" John grouses from where he's dozing in the far hammock.

Beth's looked up from the arrows she's assembling with a reciprocating smile for James. It wasn't hard for the group to make adjustments to work assignments to keep her in camp while she chooses to stay close; they adjusted then plowed ahead with the business of the camp, leaving Beth as much privacy as such close quarters permit. Though there's been no dwelling on it (and no long-term plan has yet been devised), the novelty of her news now and then invites some waggish attention.

She doesn't mind James' occasional jocular remarks. His jests are good-natured and warm. Something in his attentions brings to mind Shawn, and a little of Maggie, a kind of connection she's missed, and finds herself reservedly open to. It's familiar, they all are.

James ignores John, breathing heavily from his hurried return. "How ya doin'?"

Pulling close her thick sweater Beth hands James a bottle of water as he stows away the tools. The familiarity is comforting, and something to build on. "Ev'rything's good."

Taking the bottle from her he drinks some then dumps some on his sweaty head. "Ya cold there?"

Beth's sharpened blade cuts at an off-shooting branch, "I wasn't digging trenches."

"Lucky you." His dampened head shakes the water off and he tucks his work gloves into his back pocket and dries his dripping face, using more of the water to rinse off the black walker blood splattered on his forearms.

"You could help," is all she answers, but there's a flash of a smile in her countenance when she looks briefly at him.

"I don't know," he waivers, rubbing the calluses of his work-hardened hands, "I'm pretty lazy." With another swig of water he drops himself beside her, pulls out his hunting knife, and takes up one of the choice selected branches to shave down and straighten.

Beth eats a piece of the salted fish from the container she's keeping beside her. "How's it going out there?"

Since the return from the run she hasn't much ventured from their radius in the woods. She's still getting hit with bouts of exhaustion, and though she's otherwise been doing well enough with managing the nausea, she isn't ready to risk another incident with walkers. Her world has gotten smaller since the run, but she's grown accustomed to small worlds, and after all the walking and wandering and looking for a place to stay put, staying close to camp does not feel confining, and there is work enough to be done in camp.

James swallows a large yawn. "Well," he starts, "there's no stopping a true herd if one comes through, but we've got decoys and distracters, plus the tiger traps, trip lines and palings. Spread out like they are, they'll make a good difference."

Beth nods. She lived through the storming of her family's farm, and the two attacks on the prison; she's well aware there's no trenches or traps to be dug that will truly stop a full siege of the walking dead. She knows this. "How's the progress on the mislead camps?" This tactic was Beth's idea. Concerned that the walker diversions would draw the unwanted attention of any living bodies making their way through the woods, sending them in search of the settlement that had built them, Beth had proposed the building of counterfeit encampments. If their defenses against walkers prove to be their weakness against the living, all their work, all their care, all their losses will have been for nothing. Though it meant much harder work, pushing them further out into the woods in all directions on a much more regular basis until the work is completed, she'd successfully convinced all eight of her companions that the true merits of their camp – low profile seclusion – are only jeopardized the more rigged and wired and dug up their surrounding woods are kept. It was decided there would be three dummy camps, each several miles off from the actual camp, each staging a tableau of massacre or violence that would lead one to conclude the builders of the trenches and traps were long departed.

"West camp's up. Three tents in all. We're using the burnt out camper in the valley for the second spot; Jo Jo's idea." He grasps up a shaving and flicks it over at his cousin sleeping off a particularly arduous work detail and an early morning watch shift. Smirking, James turns back, "It was a good idea Beth." After glancing at her quick-handed motions to check his own work he continues. "Smart."

Beth puts down the shaft and picks up another branch, "I don't know what good it'll do."

He glances at her, checking, but there isn't an air of despondency about her. Her blade moves steadily down the length of the branches as her work continues uninterrupted. She's been like this, stiffly tethered to reality. Her pragmatism is neither morose nor melancholic; no one could fault her, with her still girlish giggle and easy manners, for being defeatist, but at some point she grounded herself in reality, and her young blue eyes see things clearly, and for what they are. James shrugs; if she isn't depressed just prudently sober there's not anything to be done — a little tighter grip on new realities no doubt could have kept a great number of the thousands dead alive a little longer. "Some, I hope," the young man admits freely. From where he lies, John shifts and grunts. James shoots a glance in his direction with a chuckle, then looks round the camp for her benefit, "It's shaping up here." In the three weeks since the run there have been ongoing repairs and upkeep, not only in the woods but in camp. Deeper gutters have been dug about the huts, the slanted roofs have been better reinforced with plastic sheeting, insulation, netting and tarps, and a better fire pit – one that is covered, blocked from view but aerated – has been erected. The camp was well situated and secured when she and Daryl had been brought in weeks back, but with more hands, fresh eyes and minds, and more consistency in food securement, improvements have made it safer and measurably more liveable for the advancing winter.

Beth glances at the bread baking in the cast iron pot in the solar oven Peter constructed from a car windshield reflector. The metallic insulation, held together with wire and duck tape has reduced the need for firewood and kindling, allows them to cook – without flames or smoke – undetected by walker or man, and has freed their hands and time for other work about camp. With a series of trials and errors, it has unquestionably made a big difference. "Mm, hm."

"So chatty," James remarks, his blade, like hers, never pausing from its work.

"Huh?"

"Never mind—"

"That's Jamesion for 'You're usin' one word when twenty would do better'," John mutters from his hanging bed, not too tired to cause a little stir. "Never's as happy as when he's talkin' a thing over five ways t' Friday—" John turns into his rest, meaning this time to fully fall asleep.

"'Sunday'," the nineteen-year-old says.

" _Huh?_ " The voice from the hammock would much rather be sleeping than subject to scrutiny.

"Nothin'," the rich timbre of the elder's voice directs. He looks at Beth, "Didn't mean anything by it. Talk as little as you want. —Keep on with the whittling."

Squinting at him in the sunlight, she looks away and returns to her task, "Roger."

The camp settles into a somewhat heavy quiet. Though her demeanor hasn't exactly disavowed any improvements, the overall daily and special efforts of the camp – if they're to endure past rank survival – require more levity than the monotony of level-headedness. The others are all still out about their work, and the camp is soundless but for the running of the water and the cutting of knives against coarse green wood sounding above the rustling of leaves over head and the calling of hidden birds in the recesses of the wooded shadows.

From the hammock sounds the sharp echo of two strong snaps. Then the voice. "Snaps isn't the name of the game."

James looks up first, then Beth. She looks from James to John where he lays, then lets herself smile fully.

Awake now, but still in recline, his words come quickly. "Probably you won't get this." John's right hand snaps four times, followed by four more from his left. "Ready to review your history? Really pay attention." Three snaps follow after.

Beth and James listen as they work, trying to keep up with the clues of the game that long ago took root in the camp to sometimes fill the quiet and the boredom.

"Can you keep up? Have you been listening?" Single snap. As it's told, it took Michael near to a year to catch on, and Tom not much less. Daryl doesn't get the game at all, but unlike the others who struggled to make sense of it, he never minds. While the others snap and fire off obtuse quick-winded clues he does his work, he eats his meals, he keeps his pace, he sharpens his knife, or he gets some sleep. "Really?"

"I know," James says.

" _I_ know," Beth counters. The game may be dumb, but it keeps them entertained, and even Daryl appreciates it keeps the group laughing, and the silence at bay.

" _Duh,_ " John swings where he lies.

James only gets as far as "Be—"

" _Benjamin Franklin!_ " Beth and he shout out at the same time with a laugh and a pair of competitive grins.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As will become abundantly clear, not all the words in this chapter are mine :)

The growing autumn cold broke for a day, and the sun beats down on Daryl's back as he returns from hunting by way of the stream below camp. Breaking through the brush Daryl finds Beth bathing nude in the swimming hole. The water is deep where she stands, but as she splashes and scrubs, and drifts weightless in the current, glimpses of her flesh, her curves and angles, appear in flashes through the water. Daryl shoulders his gear and crosses through the shallowest portion of the stream, stepping over the trip wires and moving sure-footed between the rocks. On their home embankment he unloads the crossbow and his haul of rabbits and squirrels, and seats himself on a large rock on the shore beside her. "You know," he says to her, wryly offhand, "you got a handful o' pairs of eyes on you, tryin' not to look," his head jerks slightly to the camp's ledge above them. Beth's eyes neither follow nor does her stance or position in the pool much alter.

"I know," with the slightest push off from her toes Beth glides her body through the cold narrow deep, feeling the current as it beats and pulls against her legs.

Daryl chokes on a chuckle and his eyebrows raise. "You do?"

"I don't think they mean anything by it." Knees bent and crouched in the river, Beth splashes the icy water on her arms, underarms and neck. His eyes on her, Daryl appreciates the slight curve and heft of her white breasts, and the pertness of her rosy nipples as they sometimes unguarded bob into view. With her trim frame and lean limbs and everything else between she's making a beautiful scene as she bathes solitary in the deep running water.

"Interesting take, Girl." Daryl pulls his knife and picks the muck and pebbles from the treads of his boots as he waits. "So," he glances at her, "you thought: 'Go with it'?"

Beth's eyes drift to where the boys had been, then lowers herself to mid-chin depth. She sucks the cold water into her mouth and slowly lets it spout across the surface from her lips. "They were kids," she says, watching the water-rings she makes, "when this all changed."

"You too," Daryl points out gruffly, his eyes wrinkling some as he looks at her in the sunlight and the black-blue ripples of water.

"They're sweet." Unceremoniously she ducks her head backwards into the water. "There isn't any harm."

"Not sure who you are, Greene," he tells her with a trace of bemusement. Rising, Daryl grabs her shirt from the rocky shore and backhanded chucks it to her, prompting her to raise not just her arm but her chest above the waterline to catch it. "They'll have good dreams," is all he says more. It's not exactly the first time this has come up. In the early days in camp, first week for sure, Michael and Simon had been unwittingly stopped short when they'd unexpectedly happened upon the view of her undressing in her hut, back before the roof had been fully completed and lined. He'd known they hadn't planned it, but when Daryl came upon them it was the flat side of his hunting blade he'd used to gently turn their heads. "Best look a different way," he'd muttered then walked on. Beth hadn't registered their gaze that time, and now above them there's no longer any sign of Rob, or Tom, or John. He doesn't think he can fault them, but Daryl thinks back on all the time he's spent with new groups, integrating with new people, and how none of it was spent ogling women. He might have glanced once in Andrea's direction and those tight jeans when he and Merle had first joined up with the Atlanta group, but the novelty gave way to the urgency of survival. Knowing the women, living with them, made it hard to look, and the walkers made it pointless. He hadn't looked again until Beth Greene had asked him to. But not everyone had the hang-ups he did.

He looks at her there, clutching her balled shirt in one hand but still contentedly submerged, making no move to extract herself from the pool. There's a teasing sort of glint in her as she watches him. "Are you coming in?"

Daryl takes a few steps back to the water's edge and scoops up a handful to slurp a drink from. "'m clean enough." When Beth laughs at this, more than a little, Daryl turns from his path and looks at her, expression arched, "That funny to you?"

Dipping herself to the tip of her nose to drown her laugh, Beth nods. "In several ways."

"Yeah?" he takes a step, swinging the crossbow down to the stream to knock a splash in her direction. "Don't go drownin' 'r anything. An' don't freeze, that damn water's cold."

Having no purpose for it yet Beth chucks her shirt back in his direction, and dips lower beneath the surface. "A body can get used to anything, you know." Once more her head arches backwards under water and rises some with a smile. "It feels good."

"Yeh? You gonna sing about it?"

Though he doesn't mind entertaining the notion of joining her, or what's more, of moving with her some ways down the riverbank, somewhere secluded, and watching her lower herself onto his lap — the thought is lovely; it's been some weeks since they've been together — Daryl lets her enjoy her icy bath. He takes up his game, and makes instead for the steep slope back up to camp. "Ya got your knife on ya?" he asks before making his ascent. She doesn't bother to answer but does indicate the large rock behind her against the ridge where the sharpened black-handled blade lies. "Keep it in sight."

* * *

The blanket falls from Beth's shoulder as she holds the book closer to her eyes in the dim light, "His flight was madness: when our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors."

"You know not," John answers, rubbing his eye, "whether it was his wisdom or his fear."

" _Wisdom?_ " Beth questions in tragic despair. "To leave his wife, to leave his babes? His mansion and his titles in a place from whence himself does fly? He loves us not," her voice shudders with heartbreak. "He wants the natural touch—" Her Lady Macduff is effecting as she reads, and now — as the scene continues between her and John's Thane of Ross, with Simon taking the part of the young Macduff child — like so many times before during their readings, their entertainment transforms to something real, palpable and moving. The boys have collected four copies of Shakespeare's plays and sometimes spend the evenings (or too-hot days), collected together, reading the parts. It passes the time, broadens the stories in their heads, and even the tragedies give respite from the world they live in.

Peter completes the lines of the hurried messenger, "—be not found here; hence, with your little ones. To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage; to do worse to you were fell cruelty, which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you! I dare abide no longer."

Attention is taut, rooted to the tension of the drama. Beth speaks the lines, desperate, pitiable. "Whither should I fly? I have done no harm." All ears strain to hear the story, willing a resolution they have little hope will come. Daryl's head is dropped over his crossed arms as he listens, letting the words take form about him. "But I remember now," Beth reflects miserably, "I am in this earthly world; where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounted dangerous folly: Why then, alas, do I put up that womanly defense to say 'I have done no harm'?" In the closing darkness, Lady Macduff's misfortune, given weight by Beth's own knowledge of fears and helplessness, renders the Scottish ghost story more haunting than perhaps it ever had been in the centuries since its drafting. The resonating silence is broken by the violent banging of a log against the ground – Peter's sound effect for the intrusion of the three strangers into the scene, into the stronghold meant to protect the pregnant Lady Macduff and her small children. Fearful, Beth's character looks around in the firelight, "What are these faces?"

"Where is your husband?" Rob's voice curdles as the first murderer. The tension mounts.

"I hope, in no place so unsanctified where such as thou may'st find him."

 **"** He's a traitor," Rob growls in character.

 **"** Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!" Simon exclaims as the young son.

"What, you egg!" Absent of premeditation Rob pulls his knife for effect, and in the flicker of the fire the blade glimmers in the motion of a quick horizontal slash. "Young fry of treachery!"

 **"** He has kill'd me, mother," Simon gasps. "Run away, I pray you!"

"He dies," Peter narrates solemnly.

" _Murderer!_ " Beth's Lady Macduff hurls.

"The scene ends—" Peter's stage directions continue "—with the three cutthroats closing in around the lady and her smaller babes."

"Christ," Daryl murmurs. "All dead?" He'd never known just how real a 400-year-old piece of fiction could get it, how close to home such old words could strike.

The group takes a breath, and then four pages turn together. "Act four, scene three," Peter reads. "England, the King's palace."

James takes up the role of Malcolm, "Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there weep our sad bosoms empty."

"Let us rather," Pete responds as the hero Macduff, "hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face, that it resounds as if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out like syllable of dolour."

The dramatic irony builds until three quarters through the scene John's Thane Ross has to reveal, "Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner, were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, to add the death of you."

"Merciful heaven!" James' Malcolm emotes. "What, man! Ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break." Somewhere in the circle Michael nods.

Peter's emotion as a grief-stricken Macduff strikes a chord with all, "My children too?"

John nods, speaking the lines. "Wife, children, servants, all that could be found."

Heavily the scene continues as the mourning Macduff struggles to reconcile himself with the loss of his family — "He has no children. _All_ my pretty ones? Did you say _all_?" — and avows to "—feel it as a man: I cannot but remember such things were, that were most precious to me. Did heaven look on, and would not take their part?" In anguish he takes on the burden of the guilt of his family's deaths, battling with Malcolm who urges him to action.

"Be this the whetstone of your sword," James presses as the exiled prince, Malcolm, "let grief convert to anger; blunt not the heart, _enrage_ it."

" _Uh,huh_ ," Rob can't keep himself from interjecting.

Smiling, James refocuses and completes the scene, "Receive what cheer you may: The night is long that never finds the day."

There's a collective release when the scene ends. All present stretch and breathe. " _Man_ …" Michael sighs.

"They're gonna march, huh?" Tom says, looking into the diminishing fire. "Take it to Macbeth, and take back the country?"

"C'n they get to him though? Think about it—" Simon says "—he's got spies all over."

"Yeah," Rob agrees, "but look at it— he's killing all his Thanes, the people're livin' in fear, an' the only people loyal to him are the ones too blind to see the difference between the title and the man. He's weak."

"He doesn't see it that way," Daryl's gruffly quiet voice breaks in. "People get scared; they'll follow a sociopath if they think he's strong e'nough to lead 'em. This Macbeth isn't going to yield." He flicks a twig into the blaze. "He can't turn back."

"Naw," John argues, continuing the tactical analysis as though the battles of the story are ones in which they'll be engaging. "That arrogance 's what'll bring 'im down. Not as untouchable as he thinks."

Daryl scratches and tugs at his beard, "Nobody's as untouchable as they think."

A beat passes, though no one takes the remark too strongly; it isn't as though it's not a truth they don't know. It's an irrevocable truth. They know.

Peter takes a breath. "One more?" They nod, throw a little more brush onto the fire, switch around the book copies, and read. "Okay," he clears his throat. "Right, act five, scene one, Macbeth's keep at Dunsinane, an ante-room in the castle. Night. Daryl reading the physician, Mikey the lady in waiting, and Beth resuming the role of Lady Macbeth."

Daryl clears his throat takes up the heavy book in one hand, brings it nearer his eyes, and opens the scene. "I have two nights watched with you, but c'n per'ceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?"

Michael answers and the two dialogue back and forth some, setting up one of the most iconic scenes from play. The boys have kept themselves busy with books and plays since their early days in camp. They began with _Moby Dick_ , taking turns with chapters, and went on to _Through the Looking Glass,_ _For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Great Gatsby, Othello, Lonesome Dove, The Tempest, The Sound and the Fury, Richard III_ , _Much Ado About Nothing,_ _Henry V,_ and _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. It not only passes the time, it gives them something to talk about other than camp upkeep and the past.

In character Beth distantly laments, "The thane of Fife had a wife: Where is she now? — _What? Will these hands ne'er be clean?_ — No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that, you mar all with this starting."

"Go to, go to," Daryl commands huskily and in his own time to Michael's servant character. "You 've known what you should not."

Beth's bloody haunted soliloquy brings to life the complexities of guilt and death, and self-preservation. She layers in empathy and steeliness, great remorse and plagued resignation, acting the part with skill, but with her own emotions kept privately at bay. The images of blood bear far less weight now than they did when those who did among these nine readers first studied the speech in high school classrooms, but the regret, mighty and unrelenting, is a reality that permeates their time. With the sleep-walking scene ended the group retires for the night, with Peter staying up to keep first watch.

Beth walks close to Daryl as they make for bed. Beneath the cloud of campfire smoke lingering over both of them, she still smells clean and fresh from her bath earlier in the day, and he breathes her in readily. Once in bed she presses into him, her closed eyelids fluttering under the sensation of his fingertips running lightly through her hair. "Dark story," he murmurs.

"Mm,hm…"

"Seems like," he rubs at his eye, "there might be lighter things t' read."

"I know…" she yawns, "but still— it's kind of... wonderful. And—" she yawns again, her eyes growing heavy, as his do also, "you know it's gonna end — story's terror can't go on f'rever—" She's barely audible now, so tired and drained is she "— can't say that now 'bout much..."

Daryl holds her close. It's true. There may be more hope in this dark story than in the world as it stands, but he wouldn't have thought made up words on a page could cut so close, take the shape of something so near to real. Breathing in he shuts out the world, both terrible and imagined, and holds on to what is most real to him. Daryl yawns into a kiss at her temple, and shuts his eyes, her slowing steady breaths setting the pace for his. " _G'night_."

" _Wheee-wheewwww_ ," a sharp whistle jolts them awake. " _Heads up!_ " Peter calls. "Walkers, fifteen yards!"


	36. Chapter 36

"Get out here!" Night goggles on, Peter aims the crossbow at the closest figure, tracking it as it trips heavily over the brush wire in the darkness, zeroing in as it keeps on, scratching and crawling. Behind him there're more, snarling, gnashing, pushing and clawing. Alarm lines sound and jangle and clank. Peter pulls back the trigger and fires, watching the bolt miss its mark and drive into the thing's neck, leaving the brain untouched, and the creature still advancing. He's pulling his pistol when behind him ensues the fracas of the camp erupting back into action as everyone bursts from their huts into fight mode, some barefoot, all grasping for knives and guns and blades.

"Mikey—" Rob shouts, "machetes!"

"J?" Peter calls, "We good for gunfire?"

"How many?" Daryl's there at the border with him, pulling the crossbow from Peter and employing his strength to reload and nock it as fast as it can be, firing it deftly into the horde with lethal accuracy.

"Manageable," Simon breathes, looking through the second pair of night vision goggles. "Twenty. Maybe thirty."

"You waitin' for a bus?" Daryl sneers through his adrenaline. "Smoke 'em; open fire!" He lets fly another bolt then pulls the revolver from his back waistband and follows after John and Rob who are already on the other side of the river running at the walkers at full speed. Shots ring out in a string of cracking echoing explosions, lighting up the night and shattering the forest's quiet.

"Circle round!" John shouts behind him into the confusion of action, waving his arm for emphasis. "Come at 'em from behind!'

More shots fire, and across the river in the maelstrom hunting knives machetes and bats thrust, slash, and strike as the strategic gunfire from the others continues.

" _Com'on! Com'on!_ " somebody shouts. "Watch 'em as they break off!"

"Blades!" another commands. "Save fire as we need it!"

Behind the river mark still, Simon breathes heavily, "How'd so many get so close?" He spits, and uses the rifle's scope to fire one by one at the walkers he can get direct hits on. Beside him Beth fires her Remington with precision and accuracy.

"Look alive!" she hears James shouting somewhere in the trees. Beth takes a shot at one careening towards Michael.

"Beth!" Daryl bellows as he strikes hard with blunt force the base of the crossbow into the decayed head of a walker pushing past the carcasses stuck on the wire line. "Watch the borders!" Beth takes two more shots then turns her back against Simon's and scans the darkness.

The butchery continues as those on the frontline take out the walkers entangled in traps and storming toward the commotion.

" _Aaarrghh!_ " an abrupt bray roars through the violent cacophony.

Beth flashes round in an instant when she hears the cry of pain, uncertain of the body it issued from. She can't tell. In the melee she can only make out indistinct shouting: ' _He bit?' 'Get 'him outta there!'_ "Who was that?"

Simon shakes his head and keeps firing. "The borders clear?"

Under duress Beth retrains her eyes on the darkness opposite the breach point. Listening and scanning, Beth scrupulously surveys the woods surrounding the back side of camp and across the lower bend of the river. The herd came from above, but the assault will likely draw in nearby roamers. She hears another shot fired from Simon's rifle and feels his body press into hers from the kickback. The cry plagues her —  _What is the injury? Who's was the body?_  — but she holds steady. Her eyes and trigger finger are all that keep their backs safe and an escape route open. "Simo—" she starts to ask but then a distant clanging of metal sounds somewhere downstream and she steps forward to the edge of the sharp drop-off and waits, straining her eyes to distinguish shadows from forms, walkers from trees. Simultaneous to the instant a rotting shadow lurches forward, breaking from the tableau of the motionless woods, she fires. Beth watches dispassionately as the thing crumples, lifeless. She suppresses the compulsion to call a roll call for her comrades less she distract them when their focus is most vital. When another emerges she shoots it.

" _Beth!_ " Simon hisses. "Get back!"

Behind her the firing has lessened though still there comes the unmistakable sounds of truncheons finitely bludgeoning decomposing skulls and metal crushing into rotted bone and decaying flesh. The action behind her persists but slows; she is anxious, but upholds her watch. She waits, and holds her trigger finger steady.

"Clear?"  _That's Rob, she thinks._

"Clear!"  _That was, John maybe. Maybe Peter…_

"Greene!" The brusque sound of his voice calling her sets her breath back at pace.

"Clear!" she answers Daryl.  _It's over._  Her shoulders slack slightly, but still she keeps her stance, her arms extended, ready to shoot. She checks her magazine: three shots. When the camp doesn't flood with their return she knows they must be in the trees scouring for stragglers, surveying what's out there. She keeps her watch, expecting each next second the horizon before her will break with walkers. With how many she cannot know.

The bridge boards drop down hard and fast over the river border behind her; there's a crossing immediately, she can hear the muffled sounds of it before she pulls her eyes away from the far bank and turns, momentarily, to see. In the dark, at her distance, she can't see much, but she sees him – the figure she knows best – carrying with the might of his own weight, over the bridge, a heavy something, sagging with pain or dead weight.

" _Michael_ —" Simon calls as Daryl pulls him over and releases him to slump to the ground near the fire pit.

"He ain't bit," Daryl assures him, breathless and exerted. "Leg's busted," he wipes at his sweating brow. "Could be bad."

Simon abandons his post and drops to his knees before his friend, feeling the leg. "I'm good," Michael winces. "No problem."

Daryl turns away from them as Simon works quickly to assess the damage, pushing up the pant leg; Daryl looks to her, "Y'good?"

Beth nods. "It's stayed clear. Only two; down stream, behind the tree line."

Daryl nods. "You okay?"

Though she'd answered him already, Beth nods again. "What happened?"

"Took 'em down, m'ybe thirty, in all. Mike there broke a leg fightin' two of 'em off; didn't see it. Think ev'rybody else 's okay."

"But what happened? How'd so many get so close?"

"Can't say till we get out there in th' light. Bettin' there'll be some caught in the traps 'n wires 'n pike defenses." He looks at her, "The setup worked."

"Yeh," Beth nods, but still her eyes move from him to scan the borders of their camp. "The gunfire…"  _It was necessary in the moment for quick neutralization, but what will the barrage have rendered? These're the first shots fired from camp in all the weeks she and Daryl have been there._

"Robby 's scoutin' south-east, I'm takin' th' west. We'll see whut's out there." Staring into the woods Daryl pulls her to him by the brawny arm he hooks around her neck. Held there close, the mixture of sweat and earth and gunfire on him smells good to her; feeling his lips come down to kiss her head, she buries her face into him, blocking out the other odors of the foul gore of walker blood and rot. "No one's sleeping t'night." He releases her to look Beth in the eye, "You good to stand watch?"

"I've got it," she nods, her big eyes looking up at him.

"How's your ammo?"

"Could use another magazine. Or ten."

" _Heh_ ," Daryl snorts, "yeh. Th' others went for the bikes; they'll be back. Get the rounds, 'll be back in thirty."

As Daryl scales the steep slope down to the lower water, Beth scrambles past Simon and Michael's discolored swollen shin and makes for the open cache of artillery, looking for more rounds to fit her sub-compact pistol. She finds only two, adds them to her magazine, and grabs a half loaded .38 revolver for back up. Alive with steely adrenaline Beth resumes her watch of the west bank, keeping keen watch of the edge of the woods Daryl and the crossbow have already slipped into. She takes down one more, watching as it pitches itself forward, marking time waiting for the better shot, meaning to keep the thing from falling into the water if she can. She takes the shot, the thing staggers and buckles onto the dry shore.

One by one Peter, John, and Tom return with the bicycles. The bikes drop heavy on their sides by the unlit fire and the boys disperse into action and a flurry of overlapping conversation.

"Everyone back? Everyone alright?"

"—Mikey's leg looks broken.

"—Rob'n Daryl are running patrols."

"—Did'ya see what happened?"

"—Leg twisted bad on the fall."

"—Help me with the splint!"

"—Biter stepped right on it."

"—Duck tape."

"—Use the branches for the arrows."

"—It's turning black–"

"—Keep it elevated."

"—How much ammo we got left?"

"—How'd so many get so close?"

"—How filled 'll those pits be?"

"—We staying here tonight?"

"—Pete, take up watch in country."

"—Was a lot of gunfire."

"—What we gonna do with so many corpses?"

"—Trip wires worked."

"—Where's Beth?"

"—Flames'll be too high, smoke'll show for miles."

"—Could use more sound alarms."

"—Right there, watchin' our six."

"—Tighter– Hold it still Mike."

"—Big breath."

While John works with Simon to construct a splint for Michael, Peter leaves camp to keep watch on the east bank, climbing their nearest watch tree, a thick strong long-leaf pine, to take, utilizing the night-vision binoculars, a wider survey of their woods. The others move briskly about to consolidate weapons, remaining ammunition, and double check the go-bags, should they have to run.

Peter's whistle signals the return of Rob, reappearing after having killed three more roamers, and taken out the ones he'd found down in pits or tangled in lines. "Iron Mike—" he grins once back in camp, "hanging in?" Michael makes the effort to mirror the nonchalance with a smile delivered through a grimace of pain. Though the night is cold Rob drops down to the river and dunks the top of his head in, letting it soak him down to his roots. When he rises he shakes the water from his chopped black hair, and gets straight to the matter: "Spotted another two roamers; slipped past 'em. Nothing else. You were right, Tommy," he takes a second to catch his breath, "tree trimmer works for the pits; gotta be quick to counter the resistance though."

Rob's return was followed in short order by Daryl's. "Got four out there. Didn't see no herd. Shots fired might'a brought 'em right to us, but only if they're out there. Woods still seem clear."

"Good. Right," James says, assuming authority, "Mikey, get some rest, hammock if you can stand it, case we gotta get you up an' out fast. Rest 'f us, we stay up. Pair off, an' keep at least one 'f you awake, till we get daylight." They bundle up, take up their weapons, and disperse.

Daryl follows Beth to the back drop-off of the plateau. There she sits, her legs dangling over the seven-foot wall. The night has once again grown quiet. It's a wonder to Beth that after all the cracking and firing of gunshots, the Georgian crickets can still sound this loudly. The chirping surrounds and fills her ears as above her Daryl drinks, taking in great swigs of water, one after the other. "Here. Drink." He passes it down to her. Though she isn't thirsty she does drink, finishing what's left from the canteen. "We're gonna make it through this night." His surly gruffness is filled with the authority of seasoned experience.

"I know."

They keep watch, surrounded on all sides of their little island by other pairs, keeping the same quiet sentry. The stars glimmer, but there's not much moon, little more than a waxing crescent. They're both tired — they're all tired — but they keep guard, awake, knowing the night may yet hold some terror. Weighted, and from the darkness, his words reach out to her: "You ready to talk about this?"

Beth breathes slowly in, then releases, letting her body deflate with its escape. It won't be long now till every breath they take will be visible in the cold winter air. "Alright."

Daryl shoulders the crossbow and takes a seat beside her. All that moves in their field of vision is the river, and the slightest gusts of breeze. "Stay or go, Greene?" She doesn't say anything, but pulls her knees up to her, pulling her options in close. She's been thinking this conversation for weeks. Daryl's knife digs cones into the dirt as he twists it down, waiting for her vote. "Don't get the sense they'll be givin' us walking orders."

Beth nods to concur. Whether it is in their best interest, whether it is unanimous or strained, she too feels the boys had not brought them in lightly, and now — in spite of, or because of, this complication — they won't push them out. Even if they should; even if they may partly wish they could. She looks at him, "You think it's wrong?"

"World's dangerous any way you put it. Leaving may turn out worse than stayin'. Might be wrong of us t' stay put an' ask 'em to take a baby on, might be jus' as wrong for 'em t' send us away."

"Seems like the Daryl Dixon I used to know was much more decisive."

Daryl runs the tip of his finger just long the edge of his blade. When he reaches the tip, he speaks. "M'be."

"If, if we leave," Beth starts, almost keeping inside what's in her head, "there's a chance we might—"

"That's not the issue," Daryl cuts her off, low and dark. "We ain't talkin' 'bout leaving here for a search party. This can't be about them."

Though she knows this to be true, still, something in her that's been left incomplete since the prison compels her to say, in the meekest, solemnly willfully hopeful voice, "Rick found Lori and Carl. It would have been so easy for him not to have." Her eyes look at him but she does not hold him in her gaze. "Dumb luck or fate, it happened."

His unrelenting pragmatism counters hard: "For every good, lucky thing that's happened, count at least d _ou_ ble that have gone the other way." When he thinks he hears something, Daryl's attention flashes to the woods, but it was just a splash in the water, a jump in the current, maybe a fish. He looks back, to her. "We got livin' an'  _this_ to do."

Beth's voice drops with realization, "You don't think we'll find them."

His face creasing as it does, Daryl's narrow eyes glance at her. He exhales. "The dead are walking around hunting the living; pretty sure fortune's gotta still have some good luck stored for us. Seeing as the world's gone t' shit and scales 're stacked steep against us."

Beth doesn't speak. This isn't that conversation. Though it's muffled, she can hear the traces of conversations from the other pairs keeping watch. "This has been a good camp," she offers. She's come easily to love each one of these boys, and this little lot of land has become home to her, one that she helped make.

" _Yeh_ ," he grunts, nodding solemnly. They saved Beth and he when they needed rest and shelter, and an influx of hope, when it was easy to think there was no one decent left living. There aren't fences or watch towers, the family isn't here, but the camp and its builders have given them safety, and a home and a place in the world when everything had been taken from them, more times than they could take. Being there buoyed them from darkness and the wilderness. "Leavin' would mean leaving a home we know we got, people we care about. You haven't had t' do that yet. Ev'ry place you've left you've done 'cuz you ain't hadda choice." He rips out some wild grass. "I couldn't do it a day."

 _Beth had never pictured the prison without him..._  She breathes; since the night her expectancy began, she's been playing out in her mind what leaving camp would be like, but the prospect and its realities have never been so palpable. "Daryl…?"

His voice is grim, and stark as he reanimates from his reverie "… I ain't certain this is where we're meant to be." He watches Beth pull her jacket tighter. "Leaving'lll be hard."

"You think for sure we have to leave?"

Wordless, Daryl shrugs.

Silent steps approach, automatically they both look up. "Hey," Tom greets them huskily. "Here; it's warm." He hands over two mugs of yaupon holly tea. "An' 'll keep you up."

Daryl takes the mugs of the forest-made caffeinated drink. It was Peter who'd known it could be done; his and James' years working up to Georgian Eagle Scouts regularly proving disparately worthy. "Cheers." Dryly, Daryl takes a sip.

"Anything?"

"Naw," Daryl answers, following Tom's gaze back across the river. "Still as a shot through th' head."

Tom nods, "Good," and takes his leave. "Till the morning y'all."

Daryl takes another drink, and offers the other cup to Beth. "Want it?"

She accepts it, if only to hold something warm to her while she sits watch. She yawns, and blows on the tea, "You were saying?"

Daryl takes another large gulp and exhales wearily. "Don' know," he grumbles. "Guess, I was waitin' t' see this place tested." He watches Beth bring the drink to her lips and take a single sip. "We'll know more t'morrow, but th' camp held up. Systems worked. We know what we're doin' here."

"Those walkers came at us f'r nothin'," Beth reminds him. "The baby will cry. For months. Longer. This camp works because of its location, and its low profile. A baby'll draw attention; without warnin', without cause."

Daryl's eyes stare unseeing into the woods, momentarily forsaking their duty. "Keep thinkin' back to that house—" he tells her "— at the graveyard. Almost didn't make it. Almost got separated, f'r good. Place had walls, weren't no baby cryin', jus' happened. Like at the farm."

Beth studies him, "Are you sayin' we shouldn't leave?"

"Dunno." Daryl swings the crossbow off his shoulder and sets it beside him. "We spent m _o_ nths after the farm lookin' for someplace that'd work b'fore the prison. We've got numbers here; we're close to water and food. We're out of the way. We get hit with a mob of 'em, we can't hold 'em here, but we didn't hold th' farm neither. This place might be as good as we'll find, until it falls." He tugs at his beard, "In a house, where people're more likely t' pass by, even 'f we keep our visibility low, a cryin' baby's gonna see ev'ryone around come running. Don't know that we could soundproof."

"There are buildings," she says, "bigger ones, with inner rooms – schools, hospitals, office buildings. We could look."

"Y'think there's anything out there like that anymore that ain't already been taken, or isn't brimming with the dead?" He looks at her, "No way we could'a taken or held the prison just us."

"Daryl…" Daryl blinks, the way he does every time she speaks his name that way. He listens. "That winter we were on the road... I thought we could do it — have Lori's baby out there, house to house, car to car— But when Judith came, I saw just how wrong that was. She cried. Not all the time, not even a lot," there's a distant glint of remembrance in her eye as she thinks on her sometimes-charge, "but you can only do some much to keep an infant from crying. And in the woods— On the road— We need walls. Strong walls." Beth tugs at her bracelets, "I think we have to look."

"On our own."

"We could stay close by," she bargains. "A day or two's distance. They could help us clear."

"You ain't ready t' go. Even that far. These days, you'd never make it."

"We can wait. This part won't last much longer."

"Beth…"

Her sudden labored intake of breath betrays her, and what she hasn't been able to let go of. "I want to find Maggie." She sniffs in the cold air, knowing saying this makes the doing of it no more likely. She's already said it she knows. Without her saying anything at all she knows he'd still know, and feel the same way, but still she speaks, saying what she knows for certain when everything else is hounded by doubt. "I want to find Glenn and Rick and Carol and Michonne. I don't want to do this without them." It hurts Daryl to hear this. He wants them back with the group just as much, but he can't do that for her. He can't do anything more to find them— Beth rallies though, pulling herself from what cannot be; she looks at him, intently, her soft blue eyes full of meaning, "I don't think — if there is choice," she amends, "— I don't think we should do this on our own." She watches him blink, she watches him listen, and weigh and consider while he watches the woods. "We don't know what will happen—"

" _Stop_."

His interruption, almost as though it had been expected, does not alter the steady even delivery of her words. " _Daryl_ ," she gravely intones, "think of Judith—" Daryl does think of Ass Kicker, often. "When the Governor came the first time, we weren't in that fight — she was out in the woods, with me, Carl, and– my dad. When he came the second time, she was left on her own, for all I know. All the kids were."

" _Beth_ ," he wants her to stop.

"No," undeterred, she shakes her head. "We don't know what will happen. To me, to you, to— I can't leave another baby on its own." Daryl winces. "The fightin's not ever gonna stop. I think… more than walls, we need people."

Gruffly Daryl clears his throat, "You wanna do it here?"

Beth doesn't want to have to answer this, she doesn't know that that's the right call, but in time she finds the only words she really has: "I want the baby to be safe. As safe as we can make it."

"… We've got numbers here," he says again.

She looks at him with her large somber eyes, "I don't want them in jeopardy because of us."

"At some point," Daryl says, "ev'rybody's in jeopardy because o' someone else. Don't mean ya can go it alone." He swallows, and takes another approach. "We'll talk to 'em."

"If there's somewhere out there safer, more established, where others are making it work, not living in the ground, in the open, then aren't we're obligated to find it?"

"You wanna go back on the road? Wand'ring? Blind?"

"… No."

Frustrated with their lack of options Daryl exhales, " _Uhhrghh_ ," and looks away, pivoting his body some away from hers. "We were on the move all that time— We find anythin' better'n this? All that walking? You'll wear y'rself out. Look'a whut happened to Lori—" Beth's eyes flash to him. "M'ybe if we hadn't moved around so much, m'ybe if there'd been more food—" He can't continue.

"It was the attack," she says softly. "The breach, the walkers. There wasn't anythi—"

"Not gonna fight you on this, Beth." He goes quiet, and bides his time before again broaching the subject. Scratching at his nose with his thumb, Daryl looks just about every place but at her. "'s e'nough to fight for already. Don't need t' be fightin' you. But you're wrong." Beth's eyes soften and lift to his; she hadn't thought he'd counter her this way.

"How am I?" she asks of him faintly.

His words are haunted by ghosts, "Didn't, havf'ta play out like that."

"Daryl…" she practically whispers.

As he'd turned away from her he turns back, and pulls her blonde head to him, tucking her into his arm and chest, planting a preoccupied and distant kiss on her head. He breathes into her, "We gotta agree on a plan."

Beth lets herself be held. Daryl feels the weight of her head rise and fall on his shoulder as his breath slows and deepens. "Plans don't work anymore. We just, we just have to do it."

Daryl looks at her, his eyes narrowed, "We've gotta stay."


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Thank you so much for your continued readership (& feedback!). In truth, I'm feeling pretty unsteady in some of these recent chapters, this one included, small scale & large. Read kindly?

Morning came, late, it felt, finding all in camp still alive, and Michael feverish from the pain. Though they spent the night in the red zone, never fleeing their camp or putting distance between themselves and the rounds fired, no further ambush came. The remoteness of their position, so far from town and road, attracted only stumbling stragglers to the echoes of the gunfire, no large horde in a second-wave nor sign of the living. Tension abates in camp as light breaks through the dark haze of early morning. First the night sky turns lighter grey, then slowly, the distant forest ground in the east begins to glow and warm, then rays of light, misty and shifting, cut through the shadowy outlines of trees and brush, and new light comes, ending the night, and with it their watch.

"Hey," Daryl's voice rumbles like stone, breaking silence he sat with too long. He nudges Beth, stirring her from her waking doze, "Better g't movin'." He shifts the crossbow, gripped too many hours at the ready, and sets his hand at her elbow. "Get the blood movin'; take a piss." Beth's eyes close in an effort to fully awake from only a semi-slumbered rest; she nods, and then moves to stir. Like him she's stiff, and chilled to the bone; it feels odd to stand after sitting so long, after waiting so many hours for the light to come. The sun is just barely breaking out through the trees, lighting the dark woods with just a distant haze of day, but the arbitrary relief it brings is real, and nourishing. The camp – still intact – crawls back to life. It was a long and labored night, but one they survived.

Though the morning light brings with it a sense of relief, a sense of reprieve from an attack they'd undoubtedly invited with their gunfire, the light does not lighten the weight of work that now rests on their shoulders. There are rounds to be made, patrols that must be sent to every walker trap to dispatch each one still caught and snarling on a pike or in a ditch or on a wire. More than that there will be the heavy lifting of the dead, the collecting of the corpses and the destruction of the remains. The night was long, the day also will be.

Standing, Daryl makes for food, his gut churning over the emptiness the forest tea left him with all night; Beth for the river, traversing gingerly the path on weary legs. "Mornin'," she gently smiles. On the lower riverbank, on her way to relieve herself, Beth meets Peter, washing the grime and the blood and the night in the tree off him in the cool creek water.

He squints into the east, "It is; finally."

She bends to scoop some water to her face. "It's been some time," she says, "since so many of them at once... You forget." She bites her lip and her eyes find the sky. With a somber twinkle she abashedly laughs at herself, "Don't know how. Careless. Get to thinking, they're almost not the problem."

Peter slurps from the water he's cupped in his hand and measures her. "You okay?"

"Mm,hm," she nods slowly, her face forming the shape of a smile. "You?"

"We made it through the night — nine for nine; I'm okay." Caught in lingering exhaustion and tension, memory and fear, not fully awake from the night she never really slept through, Beth stands there where the water pools and churns, shifting her weight back and forth on the unstable footing of the river rocks. Peter nods at her, "Go'ahead," he tells her, prompting her to action. "Y'didn't come down to visit." Beth glances at him, smiles through a nod, and with pistol in hand walks past him, rounding the river bend to the makeshift stone and soil toilets. "Hey, uh, Beth—" he calls to her.

"Ye-ah?" Her answer's unsteady; though having from the necessity of proximity long ago lost any demands of modesty, she prefers still her privacy if ever she should find it.

"Y'might think about finding another place to be today. Th' fires will be burning all day. You gonna be able to handle it?"

From behind the rocks Beth questions, "We'll risk that much smoke?"

"Can't have that many rotting on our doorstep," he says as she comes back into sight; " _none_  of us'd be able to stand it. Or are you just lookin' to be in good company?" Granting him an obligatory chuckle in answer, she takes hold his hand as he helps her take the first step to climb the slope, gripping the knotted rope line in her other. "Only saying, day's gonna be unpleasant enough without watching you get sick."

"That chivalry?" Daryl puts it to Peter as he appears above, reaching his strong arm down to Beth. Gripping and heaving her up the rest of the incline, the muscles in his forearm strain under the exertion, "What you saying to this girl?"

"Nuthin," Peter chuckles as he climbs after her.

"Hey," Daryl catches onto her sleeve as she passes. "Get some sleep."

"I'm okay." She presses a light kiss to his shoulder then moves to make toward the center of camp.

"You keep sayin' that you're gonna fall down where you stand," the archer counters. "What'ch'ya doin', training for a marathon? You got something t' prove to somebody Greene? Go lay down." His arms swings in her direction, "Get outta my hair."

"Yes sir, Mr. Dixon," Beth rejoins, only, she doesn't make for their hut.

Daryl watches her go instead to Michael where still he lies suffering uncomfortably in a hammock. " _Headstrong…_ " he mutters, then, licking his fingers from the jerky he's just finished, turns brusquely on Peter, "Whut'ch'ya lookin' at?"

"Nothing," he shrugs indifferently, "only, didn't know a person could talk to a girl that way and not get eternally shut down."

"Guess you ain't got my charm college boy."

"Right," Peter nods, "but… never made it to college."

"Then," Daryl walks away, hitching his waistband, "m'ybe ya still got some things t' learn." He whistles at Rob to hold up before going out to hunt, not holding out much hope that after last night there'll be anything in the snares. On his way to the bridge he passes the laid up Michael, " _Hey,_ " he nods with a grumble, "keep an eye on 'er."

White with pain, and sick from fever, Michael looks up from the hammock from which he hasn't budged all night, and grits through the effort it takes to smile. " _Yeh_ ," he chokes on the irony and the pain. "I'm all over it."

"Good man," Daryl nods again softly, his eyes creased. "Hang in there," he grunts. To Beth he barks as he crosses over, "Eat sum'in'."

Beth hands Michael another bottle of water and two coveted IB Profins. "It's not enough, sorry; it should help some with the fever." She watches him force down the pills voraciously; she waits. "Think you can eat?" Through shut eyes Michael shakes his head, his body can't do anything but hurt. "Sleep some," she soothes. "I'll fix some broth. It'll help."

While Rob and Daryl hunt and the others begin the work of piling up the walkers, Beth repositions the iron pot over the small fire John already got going. She drops in fish bones, two spoonfuls of collected fish oil, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Though in truth she is exhausted, her mind is alert, and as others are otherwise occupied and they all need to eat, she sets aside the lethargy. Leaving the contents of the pot to sizzle, she shakes in celery salt, minces wild onions, and finely chops greenbrier leaves, then dumps them all in. After adding water she removes the pot from the direct heat to let the broth simmer. As she waits she drinks. By the water she sits, and eats from the mason jar of fire-roasted hickory nuts. As the broth cooks she cleans her gun, then two more.

She sits amidst the camp's work, exerting herself as a part of it. They're staying, she and Daryl. She hadn't expected they would. She'd already slowly started extricating herself in her mind. Content as she's been, happy, even, as she's found herself, as close as she's grown to the seven here, she never fully let herself entertain the thought of truly staying. She's past that, one more thing she's lost in the rubble since the turn. Beth no longer allows herself to hope for permanence. She doesn't dwell on things lasting, she hopes instead for one day to pass into the next without too much trouble in between. And even now, with a baby expected before the return of summer, she's battling to keep her expectations in check. She has learned this lesson well: A house is a place from which eventually one runs. Home is where one's family is, and even family can change. She steels herself to the hard fact the road is as much a home to her now as anything. At least she takes care to tell herself this is so, meaning ever again to be prepared.

When the broth boils she serves some in a mug and visits Michael who'd been helped by John and Simon into the largest of the huts. "Hey," she smiles softly.

Michael grunts something as she enters, but it isn't discernable. Beth steps into the high-ceilinged hut and runs her cool hand over his brow. "You're no warmer," she says. "The fever will break."

"' _Break_ …'" he agonizes.

Beth's dimples appear diplomatically, "You'll be fine." Her assurance is sober, not overly sanguine or encouraging, but it's honest. "It'll hurt, but your leg will mend. You'll heal, and you'll walk."

"Run?"

Her lips press into a tempered smile. "You'll do what you can." She hands him the mug and exchanges the damp rag at his forehead for a fresh one. "Drink, I'll replace those." After refreshing the baggies of cold creek water packing the elevated break she adds greens to her own mug, and sits outside Michael's hut, talking to him some, eating in the sunlight. "Think it'll rain soon…" She watches the dwindling fire, dunks a dense chunk of sun-baked bread into the soup, and concentrates on the moment. If she keeps eating, if she sticks to protein, if she doesn't have to skin the game, she can keep herself mostly balanced, normal, aside from the fatigue; she can mostly keep the nausea at bay.

" _Hey—_ " Darly grouses, calling her out across camp. Returned from the snare rounds it provokes him to find her not only up and not resting, but supplying the fire and tending to someone other than herself "— _whut'd I say_? Ain't nobody around here handin' certificates out for martyrs. Just grave markers for dead girls."

"Hey—" Simon protests, unused to Daryl's rough belligerence being directed toward Beth.

"Com'on now," Tom cajoles.

"Daryl—" Beth addresses him, ignoring the tumult of interested parties around them "—quit babying me. I'm all right."

"Girl, maybe you do need somebody t' baby you, seein' as you're having a baby an' still walkin' round here like you've got somethi'n to prove, like you've got to outlast everybody in camp. Guess what?" he flings his arm at her as he leans in toward her direction. "You're a girl, smaller than anyone in this camp, one of em' younger 'an you by three years, and that little tired cowgirl body of yours, with no doctor, with nobody 'round who knows anything about it, is growing a person. Stop being a damn hero and take a damn nap." He stops pacing, "We will let you know when we got a job we can't do without you. It ain't pre-school – we don't all got t' be equal: you're having a damn baby, you get to take a break." Accustomed to his blustering Beth is less impressed by his outburst than are the others, but she does look at him, wide eyes indicating she indeed is sitting, and is eating. "Naw," he throws a feckless wave in her direction, "you got no sleep; lie down, don't sit. You got a couple mile walk ahead o' you; take a rest."

"I c'n stay in camp."

"No point to that," he counters sedately. "Being here, not being here, won't make no difference to the camp once the fire's are lit."

"I can clear," she tells him. "I can help with the piles." She's been keeping clear of walkers, but feels strongly the importance of clearing over catering to the sensitivity of her stomach.

"Hey now," Tom intervenes, "Mikey's not going anywhere, an' he's not being left here on his lonesome. Stay here, kill three biters with fifty-four bullets."

Daryl smirks, nods in her direction, then reaches out his hand to her, "Think you can handle that? An' some sleep?" With a quick solid tug he lifts her to her feet.

"Right," Rob nods. "We clear the pits, the trip wires, the traps. We get the bodies an' make piles."

"How many pyres we talkin'?" Daryl asks.

"Smart to just have one," John weighs in, "but that much transporting 's not realistic."

"It's dry," Peter remarks. "We gotta control these fires. Plan for wind shifts."

"You know how to do that?" Daryl challenges.

"What about the trailer?" Beth posits. "It's burnt out already; lightin' that, it could control it spreadin', right?"

"'s a good idea," Simon nods.

"Can't get 'em all all the way out there," James points out. "Distance is too far, terrain too uneven."

"In the pits then," Simon suggests. "Ditches 'll keep the flames from jumping as much as anything."

Daryl nods, "Could work."

Peter agrees. "Consolidate them; be ready with shovels to pile on dirt when the flames get too high."

"Right," Daryl grunts. "Work in pairs, use the carts, use the sleds."

"Will take hours," John wipes his brow, "b'fore we get any fires lit."

James looks into the sky, "It's not 9:00 yet; got the whole day."

* * *

The sun nears its highpoint in the sky as Daryl and James partner to clear one trench and reset a tiger trap. Below ground Daryl inhales beneath his red bandana as he works to heave another body above his shoulders, pushing it over the edge. "Beth an' me had a talk las' night."

James strains, pulling with all his might, also muffling the stench behind a rag, "Yeah?"

Using his forearm Daryl wipes sweat off his upper lip before he starts with another. "We're set t' stay on." Briefly his eyes meet James', "If that's a thing you all could see takin' on."

James pauses fractionally to look Daryl in the eye, and then he bends and takes up another walker to transport and discard into the trench further south from their position. "You know it's not up to me. Consensus rules." He kicks off a walker as its body rolls lifeless onto his boot, then steps back. "Pete'll speak for you."

"Not worried about Peter.  _Or_  Michael. Or Simon," he adds. "H _e_ ll, half the camp's in love with her, one way or another."

"She's pretty terrible," James deadpans. "Both of you. Worthless." Daryl half smirks, but he can't find real levity in it till he knows for certain he Beth and the baby have the votes to stay. "There are—" James says with some sensitivity "—other concerns."

Daryl's head nods soberly, " _Yeh_ ," he grunts. "I know."

James drags the bodies out of the way to clear the rim for more corpses to get pushed out. He winces some as his body strains under the effort.

"How's that road rash?" Daryl asks, noting the pause.

James looks up from his task and down at the bruised and gravel-burned skin of his arm – the same marks covering the side of his torso and face and neck. He spits, "It'll heal if it doesn't get worse." It'd been a slow process washing out and picking out all the gravel and debris the wounds carried, but washed and cleaned the stinging beneath the stretching scabs means the new skin is growing. He nods; Daryl likes James, doubtfully having anything to do with his age – the oldest of teenagers is still plenty young to him. Pete's the one each boy feels connected to, the charismatic one, but James is the strategic thinker, level-headed and savvy. Daryl likes that. He appreciates all their capabilities, look at how long they've lasted. He wouldn't fault them for turning him and Beth away; pragmatically, a newborn's a big liability to take on. And all considered, he and Beth haven't been with them all that long a time. Still, he's fairly confident the vote will go in their favor, and that she and he could make a good case if initially it does not.

He wouldn't fault them, but he knows something he's not certain they do: The helpless need protection. Everybody's got to face reality, not hide, be a help as they can, and do what needs being done, but the helpless, the vulnerable, be it age or size or disability, forsaking them – in the old life or in this new one – is forsaking something in yourself, and something much greater than yourself. You can't be dumb, can't be foolhardy: Some people prove undeserving of help, and it's indisputable that not everyone can be saved. And there are times self-preservation demands tough calls to be made, when circumstances exact the highest price of living — leaving someone behind. They'd done that. Merle on the roof. Him at Woodbury. They'd left Andrea at the farm. They'd nearly surrendered Michonne. He and Beth left the prison at the verge of its collapse, knowing there might be others, even kids, even Judith, still behind. In those moments, the moving on isn't for lack of feeling, isn't for lack of guts. Unlike this decision to be set before the group,  _there is no choice_  in such moments, even when your mind and heart trick you into thinking otherwise. He and Beth might have been able to find the kids, Luke or Molly, Eryn or Owen, Mika, Lizzie or little Judith, but they might not have. They might both have died. It wasn't a choice, their escaping. Saving the life you know you can save in a moment like that is not a choice, it's instinct, primal; cowardice and heartlessness play no part in it. But a moment like the one they're soon to face – a voting moment, it  _is_  a choice. It's a choice to protect the unprotected, not because of debts and ledgers, but because to rally round the defenseless is to uphold humanity in its decline. Dale knew it. It's why Rick didn't give up on Sophia. It's what Merle never got, maybe not until the end. Daryl thinks this group has it in them, they'd already brought in two strangers. Housing a newborn in the open isn't easy, he grants that freely, but turning one away is harder. In the months of Lori's expectancy, the group was nervous, but they took it on. Took on Lil' Ass Kicker as one of their own, long before her mother and Maggie brought her into the world. This group of seven teenagers in the Georgian backwoods is equal to the same; Daryl sees it in them. He will bring it up tonight.

"Gotta say," James pauses to catch his breath, "it'd be nice to see a baby again." Daryl stops to pull a pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of the remains of some filling station clerk. "An' Simon'll appreciate no longer being the baby."

Daryl snorts. He bends to lift another. "Not sayin' stayin's the answer. There's plenty wrong with bringing up a little one out here, never mind the walkers. Exposure f'r one—" he breathes in and pushes. "Can't wander all o' Georgia lookin' for some place that'll make it all al'right, some place that dudn't exist." He assists with the cumbersome hoisting, "Can't drag her along findin' nuthin' more than shit. We seen e'nough of that, and then some." With a jump and some arm work he climbs out of the pit and lends a hand dragging the last one out. He's talking more than he's want to, he's aware, but he's laying the groundwork for their case, and on top of that, he's alone in this – in his concern for his young family.  _There's no more Rick, no more Hershel…_

James takes a moment to recover his breath. He looks at Daryl, squinting, "You think there are communities out there? Still? Ones that are safe?"

"Can't leave her behind while I look. Can't leave her, an' can't see how we could go. Could be there's nothing out there t' find." He pulls his gloves off and drinks from the canteen at their feet. "Beth'll kill herself trying to make way for this baby." After a pause Daryl's thumb rubs at his chin and he grunts, "Gotta be in'a place she won't havf'ta work so hard to do it. Li'l kids need families. Big as they c'n get 'em."

"Last night get you thinking about this?"

"Thing is," Daryl reflects as he dons his gloves again, stoops, and starts to drag a body, "after all what we been through — what we've seen, the carnage we run across — get to feeling, with jus' the two of us, with her like she is, it's the livin' what we got to fear."

James nods; there's a reason they ducked into the woods more than a year ago, why they gave up on larger groups. "Yeah."

"Out there—" Daryl drags the thing, heavy, over roots and rocks "we seen whole communities – one with kids an' old folks – ambushed and executed. We heard stories about rapists, brutal, violent stuff. Beth's own sister was nearly did for. Seen all kinds of shit done to people who never turned; bodies, killings, dismemberment. Found a storage unit, some poor thing had been held prisoner, chained to a bed. For what looked like m _o_ nths. People driving round with tanks, with sub-machine guns an' worse. Country's a war zone; playground for every psychopath that ever torched a cat." He shoves the rotting corpse into the pit, watching as it tumbles and falls hard onto the others. Dary's haunted by the things he's seen, still though, after they were run off the farm, the group had stayed on the road for months without incident. They'd enjoyed long stretches in the prison too. "With walkers," he says, heading back to the pile, passing by James and the carcass he drags, "it's easy; you know what they want – ain't no existential crisis gonna tell you anything other than they're coming at you t' kill, you an' everyone that's yours. Th' livin' are diff'rent." He picks through the tangle of walkers till he can get a solid grip on one free enough to easily drag. "Could be harmless, could be an asset, could be – they's just like the walkers, only they're not killing you t' eat, just 'cuz they like doing it. Can't take Beth into that." What dogs Daryl is the knowledge that all anyone would have to do to get to her is kill him. One shot… they'd have her. They're all just one shot away…

James grabs his second and drags, using his legs to pull the dead weight. "You can deliver a baby?" he breathes hard.

Daryl pauses, re-gripping his hold, "Gonna have to. Ain't nothing to be done about that. Mothers been havin' babies long before there were doctors."

"If you're worried," James ventures, shifting the tone of the conversation with just a touch of well-intended critique, "probably better ways of handling it than hollering at her all day."

Daryl eyes his companion ruefully, resenting this editorial, resenting more his own inbred combativeness. Even with everything Rick never spoke to Lori out of hand. Glenn could never speak to Maggie the way he on occasion speaks to Beth. His belligerence was learned, but not from them, it was much earlier, and deeply ingrained. He shouldn't shout at and badger Hershel Greene's youngest daughter, even in the taking care of her. Daryl grits down and pulls. "It's like she feels she's got something to prove."

James kicks the body over. "Does she?"

" _Hell no_ ," Daryl's response comes quickly, followed by a more guarded grunt, "Not t' me. Girl's tough as hell." His face creases as he reflects, on the months, the years he's known her… "Can't keep her down."

"Could be she's coping. Pete gets all kinds of industrious when things get to him."

"Coping or not," Daryl mutters, "she's gonna wear herself out." He looks at James, "We get the 'okay' to stay, we'll earn our keep, but Beth's load is gonna change." He drops his walker in, the thud it issues is leaden and crackling as bones snap and crunch. "I'll take up the slack."

"No one has concerns about that. The pair of you have shouldered this camp since the day you got here."

Daryl only shrugs, unaccustomed to being anything but an asset. He pulls a cigarette from the crushed pack, and though it smells foul, holds it between his lips and lights it. He offers the pack to James.

James shakes his head, "Never liked it."

Daryl scoffs with amused derision, "Smoke bud but not tobacco?" He shakes his head with disdain, " _Kids._ " He inhales deeply, taking great pleasure off these first few drags, remarking as he exhales, "Ain't gonna kill you ya know."

James chuckles some, shuffling his feet in place, "Guess it'd be pretty lucky if it did."

"Go on," Daryl's raspy voices urges, "put some hair on your balls."

"Short on occasions for concern for my balls," James retorts, but still he accepts a cigarette, lets Daryl light it, and inhales. He paces, above the rim of the walker pit, watching the smoke as it issues from his parted lips. He glances at Daryl. "You ever planned on having kids?"

Daryl's grimace is momentary, only a flinch. He paces some. He's not going there; he never has. From his youth every concept of family has been too raw, too deep, too volatile— Before this, before all of it, he never could have had this, this thing he has with Beth – this sort of connection, been the sort of man equal to being a father. Before, and for so long, he had been entrenched in his detachment. Family had been whatever Merle offered, and whichever lowlifes and skirts he brought around. The battered scowl that pierces through him misses James and Daryl whets his bravado, snorting wryly, " _Yeh_ ; jus' waitin' for the right time." He takes a careless drag. "Think I found it?" His irony is dark, but not caustic.

" _Hmph_. Right," James acknowledges, wiping his brow, holding his cigarette rather than smoking it. Once more his glance finds Daryl, "This your first one, or—"

"—No," he cuts him off numbly, his low voice rumbling with the volatility of thunder. "Never lost no kid."

James takes another experimental drag. "Weird timing, huh?"

Daryl's head shake contradicts him. He wouldn't be here, with her, awaiting fatherhood, had not everything else come before it - the turn, the loss of Sophia, the fall of the farm, Rick, Carol, Hershel, Glenn, Judith, Merle, the Governor. He reached this point because of them, because of the walkers. "Nuthin' weird about it." He takes a long final drag then flicks the butt into the heap of corpses, tugs on his gloves, and gets back to work.

* * *

A little past noon, sweaty and filthy, Daryl returns, appeased to find Beth asleep in their bed. Dropping to the ground he sits in the entrance, hanging his legs into the dugout where beside him she lies slumbering on her belly. He watches her sleep, then extends one hand and fondly touches her head, lightly moving his fingers through her lengthening hair. Beth stirs. A slow smile appears, half submerged in her pillow, then her eyes flutter open, once, then twice, then focus on him, and his dirty, sweat-stained face.

Daryl smiles her a smile of contrition. "I'm an asshole," he says plainly.

Beth yawns contentedly, then pleasantly buries her head deeper into her pillow. "I don't care." From under the pillow she's been holding close, her fingers emerge and search blindly for his. When she finds them she tugs them nearer to her and kisses his curled knuckles. He hadn't expected that.

" _Yeah_?" he balks. "You  _should_. 'Cuz you're the only thing I've got I love. M'ybe I shouldn't be barkin' at'chya."

Well rested and awake, but sublimely comfortable and at ease, Beth continues to curl herself into her soft and nestled bedding. She yawns, thinking how supremely delicious sleep is, uncertain why she'd resisted it… "Maybe I'll just yell back."

"Yeh?" he grins sideways, his brow cocking up at her. "What for?"

"'Take a bath!'" she play shouts from where she lies, her mouth just clearing the folds of her pillow. "'Quit smoking!' 'Stop bossin'!"

He squints at her, amused but dubious, his belly arched as he makes her out, "That's it? Those're your complaints?"

His narrow blue eyes lighten as he smirks at her, and she, revived by her rest and the little adrenaline kick from yelling at him, smiles convivially. "If you give me time, I'll come up with more."

"Hell, Girl," he says through his charming squinted smile as he moves to stand, "you got all my time."

"Hey," Simon's quiet little face ducks down into their hut, flashing a goofy smile at the two of them. "Better get a move on; countdown to pyrotechnics is five minutes. Guess we'll see you at bed check."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleh! Like I said, despite knowing where I'm taking this, I am feeling lost in both the execution and articulation. Am I over thinking? Over detailing? Would really help to hear from you what's working and what needs tweaking / reworking. [Apologies also for the super-chatty Daryl in these last two chapters, a little OOC maybe, but I couldn't see a way around it.] xx


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. Thanks for hanging in. xx Jody

Big clouds of black smoke billow in the air behind them, climbing the sky as they head the other direction. The heavy lifting of the morning behind him, Daryl walks a bit aimless through the new growth of the woods, letting her lead the way. "Feelin' better?"

"Mm,hm," her dimples deepen as her smile amiably spreads. "Feels good to walk. Feels good to feel the world's a little larger th'n that camp."

"Uh, huh." Squinting into the sun he bites off a hunk of dried squirrel meat, stringy and tough as he chews. "Meant what I said, you know," Daryl murmurs as he trails behind her. "You're workin' yourself too hard."

"Let's just, walk." Beth glances back to him over her shoulder. "No scoldin', no plannin'."

Daryl nods and grunts his assent. "Whatever you say. Lead th' way."

Beth cups her hands inside the cuffs of her thin long sleeves, tightens the straps of her small pack, and climbs. The air is heavy and loaded with the possibility of rain, but the sun still shines brightly on the leaves and foliage in the changing autumn air. The temperature is dropping, just. It's slow, gradual, like the summer heat's not ready to loosen her grip, but still there's a briskness underneath, catching up from the shadows. Winter is coming; one day it'll be on them, clinging, like summer never happened. She thinks they'll be prepared.

They walk, covering good ground. Beth, glad of some activity, does not mind the distance when there's no uncertainty in their ending destination. Having a bed, a camp, people to return to, makes the several miles they'll cover easy. Her legs, lean, and in want of use, carry her on at a steady pace, but she senses him several paces behind her, never quite catching up. When her path takes her to a young sapling grove, Beth pauses and drinks. Standing there, surrounded by the fluttering leaves of the saplings, Beth lowers her canteen from her mouth, her lips wet from the river water, and she looks at him. "… We're alone," the smile on her tanned face is quiet, and sly, traced with a stitch of purity. Her eyes watch his foot falls as his body moves him closer to her. "We could fool around."

Daryl's eyes, cool, and blue, and narrow, flit to her, and hold her there in his concentrated gaze, steady and relishing. He blinks, slowly, and contained in that moment there's the slightest bite of his tongue, charged with desire. "We could," he nods temperately, but then his long agile strides start up again over the forest ground. "Or you could get some miles on those legs an' get some exercise; 'll be good for you." He spits unceremoniously to his side and calls her with a deft dip of his head. "Walk the snare line; get some greens." In silence Beth wipes at her mouth with her sleeve, tightens the lid on her canteen, and resumes the journey. He's moving backwards in wait for her, only turning back round when again she passes him. Daryl's eyes are watchful as she does, as she eclipses his pace and moves ahead. He shakes his focus from her charming figure with a light shove at her back, pressing the butt of the bow against her where what weight her small frame carries so enticingly sits shifting below her yet unchanged waist; "Do sumin' useful, girl."

"' _Soo_  worthless,'" she echoes back to him, not goaded by his benign critique.

"Nope—" Daryl's grunt is gruff and heavy with certainty. "Didn't say nuthin' close to that."

Pressing on as he'd directed, Beth smiles, knowing he cannot see it, and enjoying the steady sound of his light-footed steps behind her.

The grove behind them now she ducks beneath the low thick-growing branches of the Georgian maples and keeps her eyes active. Beth stills herself in place when behind her a soft whistle alerts her to slow. Frozen, she scans her surroundings, finds them clear, then slowly turns and meets his eyes.

With a jerk of his head he utters, "Come'ere," and beckons her closer. The bow, an extension of himself, points to the forest floor ahead of them. He doesn't mean it for a place to lie down; she knows that, so her eyes follow his point and never find his face. "Tell me what we're trackin'." He hands the crossbow to her and gives her a little directional push forward. "No good gettin' rusty."

Beth looks, her features newly focused on the ground ahead of her, her arms adjusting to the heft of the bow, lighter though than Daryl's taken Stryker. She surveys… staring keenly for some time… "The grass n' leaves aren't crushed; they're raised, or flattened. Very faint – you c'n only see it in places…" Gingerly she steps forward, peering closer to affirm her assessment. "… It's a snake."

Daryl leans forward on one leg, the whole of his body coming up close and warm behind her as he leans in to study her finding. He nods with definitive approval. "Good eye. But we ain't trackin' no mud snake. Take another look," he uses an arrow to point, "what else is there."

Undeterred, Beth looks, narrowing her eyes, treading lightly as if not disturbing the ground beneath her will help her to read the ground ahead of her. She shakes her head. "I don't know. Daryl, I can't track squirrels; don't know how I saw the snake."

"It's bigger than a squirrel. Look again."

Beth looks at him first, but he just motions her eyes back down and she follows, looking. "Oh," she pauses. "It  _is_  bigger." Her brow furrows. "That's not a walker though. It's too deep, an' small."

"Naw," he confirms. "Keep lookin'."

Beth leans in closer, then looks up pleased, "There're are two of 'em. Side by side."

"Uh,uh," he shakes his head with a smirk, "there ain't. There's one. So you know: ain't too many Georgian animals travelin' two-legged, not that size." The arrow in his hand points lightly this way and that, "This fella's on th' move." Daryl looks past her at the trail. "See something else?" he nudges. "Between the legs?"

She hadn't, it's too faint, but she sees it now, in places. "Pushing. Or, blowing."

"Right. Now think."

It comes to her before she names it, and the light in her face tells him she's got it. "It's a pig. A wild boar or something."

Gratified, Daryl twirls the arrow between his fingers, "Feel like some bacon?"

* * *

The shadows stretch and loom long as Daryl's hands cup at his mouth and he lifts some on the balls of his feet and calls, "Yo!" He, a worn out Beth and the slain hog wait at the riverbank for someone to appear to drop the bridge boards. All around them in the distance in each direction the fires still burn; the smoke pillars climb the sky, in dusty gusts of pestilence and rot. The air remains thick and unbroken, no rain yet, but loaded with the possibility of it. Daryl waits, shifting his weight with impatience. His whistle as they'd neared seems not to have been heard, there's no sign of anyone moving. "Bridge!" he barks, unable to quit pacing though he's been on his feet since break of day. No bridge comes, and seeing no one's coming, Daryl shakes off the crossbow and passes it over to Beth as he backs up for room to make the jump.

Weary and fading, Beth watches Daryl once across the bank pull the boards from the shrubs and drop them over the river crossing. He's winded from the effort it took to get the pig back to camp, but singularly driven by the work ahead — of butchering it quickly and getting it over heat and flame. Glancing over his shoulder as the planks thud into place, Daryl breathes and grunts. "Must still be workin' the pits." Not thrilled to be out so many pairs of hands when there's a slaughter this size to see done, his movements are quick and sharply efficient. On the clock since his knife severed the animal's arteries, Daryl loses no time crossing back to the outer bank, where, though more exposed, the circumstances of the weight and size of the beast, and the mess the butchering of it will spill, necessitate the work take place. Holding out his hand for it, his fast grip and steady forearm catch the bow as she bends her knees to toss it back to him. He lets her step past him over the river, but he can't let her linger there, can't let her rest like he'd thought she'd be able to; he'll need her hands, and still they'll be outnumbered by heft, and mass, and time. Like so many times before, Daryl finds them warring against the elements, against rot and flies and maggots. He'll be damned if he'll let this much effort, this much good meat go to waste by spoiling. Not with a group of nine to feed, not with so little game left in the woods, not with so much hunger lurking ever around them.

Pacing, heaving heavily, he eyes the hunted game splayed out in the weeds near the water's edge. "Can't get this done quick enough, jus' us." Daryl wipes his brow, smearing dirt and blood into his sweat as he does. "It'll be a mess. Bes' hope none of 'em  _a_ ssholes come an'…" He stops and scans the woods… no signs of walkers. "Havft'a build a fire out here—"

Daryl considers moving the slaughter site to one of the four pit fires. Their efforts in doing so would benefit them should they happen upon one still tended by their group. Meeting up would secure them the extra hands they need, and a fire already built and ready would save them time, and give them the heat and smoke they need to preserve and cook the bounty. Daryl again breaks into action, and Beth follows, gathering brush and branches for fuel. The further distance to drag the pig, not to mention the water that would carted, needed to clean the flesh, then more walking, in the dark, back to camp with the cuts — all argue against their leaving camp for any one of the distant burning pits. Every minute he's not working the day's efforts come closer to being for naught. It'd been hard work and heavy labor to get the pig back this far; had the hog been any larger they never would have been able to get it back at all. As it was, they'd already spent the better part of the day tracking the animal then herding it back round closer to camp, knowing the further out they killed it, the longer they'd have to drag it back, and the more likely they'd have to surrender it to walkers. The time to head to one of the four fires has passed; they have to make do here, and under the gun.

Daryl breaks off heavy branch after heavy branch, snaps them and drops them on the growing pile meant for the pig-roasting pyre. "We'll bring over the smoker. Get the cuts over heat; burn what's left. Won't be pretty."

All this she already knows; while mostly it's hares and squirrels and fowl they get, this is not Beth's first slaughter. What's more, she was raised on a working farm, and just like him has been living in a world infested by the rotting walking dead; she doesn't need his distracted preamble. Her stomach may be less dependable, but she hasn't lost her nerve. Beth shrugs off her load and removes her knife from her belt, then her canteens of water. She cuts down branches and shrubs, building the structure of the fire they'll light. Briskly Daryl drops the cut-and-run pack he'd carried with them all day, unsheathes his hunting knife, and drops to his knees. Resting the bow against a good-sized rock behind him he rinses his hands in the cold stream then takes up his knife. Handling it deftly he sets himself to the butchering before the animal starts to rot or spoil and all their work was done for nothing. "Hey," he calls behind him to her, "they let the fire die? Could use the embers."

Beth raises herself on her knees as her eyes move to the fire pit in camp. It is cold; no light or driftings of smoke emit from it. She looks to the hut where Michael lies; he needs to be checked on — but beside her Daryl's already hard at work under the time clock of food safety, and the ever-weakening light. " _Beth_ —" Beth focuses, rummages through their things for the flint, and directly sets herself to starting a fire. Beth strikes at the flint, shooting off sparks with each crack, and blows on the catching tinder to strengthen the blaze.

The fire set and building, Beth lends her hands to the skinning. "Pull harder–" he grunts, spitting to the side. "There." The stretching-tearing makes a sort of wet stripping sound as from head to flank the hog is flayed. It goes slowly, the lack of light doesn't help, and fat they would've been better saving gets cut off with the skin. Knives flick and shave and saw; tough bristly skin is tugged and peeled. The fire licks and snaps.

The animal mostly skinned, Beth feeds the gristle and the flesh to the crackling flames. Daryl saws and cuts, wielding the lethal blade with deftness as the darkness falls. Preciseness here is paramount, not to cut too deep. If the innards are nicked, or the intestines break, the meat will be lost. It's vital, and the light is bad. They spill out, ugly and wrinkled, grey and pink. They can't be brought to the fire, not without the threat of tearing open, not without even more mess. Beth cuts off some pieces for fish bait for the traps then picks out some larger branches that have caught fire and set them atop the pile of guts to burn, and keep out of the river.

The smell would be bad if the air weren't already filled with the smoke from walker pits. The stomach and intestines burn, and Daryl gets to carving. As he does, Beth sets the cuts in the reassembled smoker and over fire. "Salt– Beth, where is it?" Heavy as she's moving now, slowed by weariness and sickness, Beth scrambles to fetch what is needed, to be the hands needed and to provide the light necessary to keep the cuts and the meat clean. She pulls the salt from her pack and hands it over. Once she steps away to be sick. Daryl keeps up with the butchering, coating some cuts with salt for drying, setting others aside for roasting and frying, and others still for smoking. His hands are diligent and agile and his breath comes somewhat labored under the focused hurried exertion. Fueled by the memory of so many nights and days spent hungry, Beth returns to the work, waxen and flushed though she is. The work is necessary, and it bears her forward; the greenness always passes, the hunger never does unless they work.

"S'a'lright," he grunts, as he catches her slowing. "Eat sum'in; take a rest."

"Can't eat."

"Sit then. Stoke the fire."

Beth breaks off more branches and fuels the fire so that it reaches and spits. The smoke climbs, though invisible now in the dark. She sets in the embers the small aluminum pot from Daryl's pack, filled with water, ham, a pinch of salt, and a fistful of the greens they'd collected during the day's walk. She sets it to simmer and her eyes grow heavy from the watching. Her purposes slacken, and in the stillness her inactivity makes way for, unconsciously she slips into sleep.

The air is savory with crackling salted pork when he nudges her, his warm breath close to her ears, "Green." Beth stirs then startles. Her eyes flash open and readily she jerks herself up. Daryl's face is streaked with blood and sweat and dirt, as hers is also though she cannot see it. His soft eyes crease as he looks at her while she wakes. "You're al'right."

Beth looks to the still uncut haunch muscle, the roasting carcass, to the burnt innards, the singed and smoking meat, and at him, then to camp. It's dark. "They're not back?" Daryl shakes his head. "You checked on Michael? Did he call?"

"Naw." Daryl holds out his hand to her, "Com'on. Take a break; eat sumin'." He lifts her to her feet, takes up her pack and his, the crossbow, and crosses with her into camp. He drops the gear and re-crosses to the far bank for the pot of broth and the strips of pork sizzling on branches, and bends at the river's edge where the morning's dishes were left to dry and takes up three bowls. Making do in the dark Daryl pours the broth into the bowls for her.

"I can't find any water bottles. There aren't any here."

"There's one in my pack."

"But—" Daryl fishes his out, presses it into her hand and takes from her a bowl of warm broth and swallows it without attention to the temperature. With bottle of water in hand and a dish of broth she crosses to Michael's hut, unhappy he's been left alone so long, regretting the agony he must be suffering. Though she'd called his name once as she'd tended to the fire he hadn't answered, so she approaches quietly, not wanting to disturb what little rest he manages to get through the pain.

She ducks in, into the darkness. The hut is a tangle of bedding and unrest, but there's no Michael lying there. With water and soup still in hand Beth moves directly to the boys' other two huts— "He's not here."

"Huh?" Daryl grunts through a jawful of meat. "What'd'y say?"

Beth steps closer, intent. "He's not here. Michael's not here." Daryl looks up, his mouth full. "He wouldn't leave," she asserts flatly.

Daryl stops, straightens some from his crouch, breathes, wipes his brow, and opens his mouth to answer. Before sound emerges another sound interjects itself – the heavy rasping snarling of walking rotters – Daryl sets aside the meal in his hands and takes up the nocked and loaded crossbow. In one movement he turns, aims, and fires, shooting the walker maybe twenty yards off. When his quick eyes are certain there's no more in his company he just as quickly turns back, drops the weapon and pulls out his knife with an effortless flip of the handle. Ready. He looks around, all is still. "Mikey!" he calls through cupped hands. No answer, he isn't near. Daryl re-sheathes his knife. "Smoke prob'ly got t' be too much."

"But he can't walk."

Daryl takes up his meal again and looks at her through a squint, "You forget? Your old man was up and walkin' pretty much as soon as he was awake."

"There're no crutches here."

"Beth," he exhales, "we been carrying walkers all mornin'. They could carry Michael if they wanted."

"No one said they'd all be leaving camp."

"Plan was to burn the bodies, an' keep the fires from spreading. If the wind picked up, they could'a needed all hands, or the smoke got too thick in camp, or they just didn't want to leave him on his own." Daryl wolfs down what's left in his bowl then drops it by the riverbank. "Sit tight," he gestures with the bow, "gotta get back; check the heat, finish up."

Daryl crosses back to the butcher site and Beth turns back to camp, studying it with brow knit. She watches Daryl, his silhouette enlarged by the flames behind him. Sipping the broth she watches him work at the final slab of meat. It doesn't take her long to cross back to his side, it's not a job easily done with two hands. She carries to him a bunch of smoking brush to keep off the swarming flies and bugs. They work, silent, all light but that from the fire long diminished into darkness. They transfer meat to the fire, catch grease with folded foil as fat drips while the pork cooks. They adjust the heat directed into their smoker and turn the thin slices as they sizzle in the pan. No movement comes from the woods; no one advances toward camp.

Beth's eyes reach his. "We should look, don't you think?"

Daryl looks up, he wipes his brow. He scans the sky, his expression crossed and creased. He looks at her. He breathes. The black smoke from the pit fires still haunts the air, so still they must be burning, but with this much time, she's right, the others should be back. He looks at her, his shoulders heavily burdened; while time slips past Daryl weighs things in his mind. "Naw," his head shakes stiffly. "Fires – burnin' all day like they was – likely drew in walkers; if they did, this is the safest place t' be." He cleans his knife, and tosses a piece of scrap onto the fire. "They maybe had t' take a long way back." He glances at her, unsteady. "They're trav'lin' slow with Mike's leg like it is." Beth nods, these things could all be so. Their not being here doesn't have to mean they ran into trouble with walkers. Doesn't have to mean they've been overrun.

Staring into the fire Daryl speaks up, his voice gnarled with tension, "If they ran into walkers, they might'a got pushed back. Could'a had to run, might be circling back some distance." Beth looks at him, she nods again half-heartedly. "They didn't get overrun." He snaps a twig. "They c'n handle themselves."

Beth rises, "We should look. Daryl, we should go look."

His words are leaden. "They'll make it back." His eyes narrow back on the embers and Beth crosses the boards and reenters camp. In the shadows he's left grimacing and cleaning.

"Daryl–" her voice is static with caution "–was this you?"

"Huh?"

Beth's eyes are trained on the ground before her. The night is bleak, but still in the darkness she can make it out: the cellar pantries, they're laid open, empty and cleared out, but fast.

Neither she nor he had lingered in camp long enough to catch it before, too distracted by their kill, by their tasks. But there they are, empty and left gaping. "Beth?"

She's stark and shaken when she speaks. "They're gone."

Daryl's on his feet and beside her instantly. At their feet floorboards lie thrown aside as they never are. The oils, the seasonings, the staples and preserves they've labored to amass are gone. Had Beth and Daryl not had their go-bags with them, had they not carried with them salt, flint and a pot, they might have discovered this upset so much sooner.

Single-mindedly they tear through the brush, to the armory holds and hidden supplies. It's all gone, the weapons, all: the machetes, the couple guns and small cache of rounds, the knives, the flares and the fireworks, all of it. Gone.

"They–" Beth stumbles over her shock, "they wouldn't have taken it all out on runs…"

"No."

"They didn't take Michael because of the smoke."

"No." Daryl's hand flexes over his knife handle. "That's not what this is."

Spurred to action and frantic, Beth searches the camp. Returning to the huts more thorough, she sees what she should have when first she'd looked for Michael and not found him. It's not just the pantries and arsenals that have been cleared; the huts have been raided. She'd attributed the disarray to Michael's restlessness, and hadn't looked any further into the other huts beyond finding he was not there. She finds the go-bags are gone, same with a lot of the bedding. But not everything. Not the trinkets, not the personal tokens and collected small possessions of each of them. Those things remain, but their owners, they're gone.

"Daryl—" Beth's voice waivers. The sense of safety, of home in this place, disintegrates around her. Daryl brushes past her in action, no longer in denial, no longer looking past the obvious. The time for action is upon them – has been upon them – and he's springing to it. Beth's eyes follow after him, but she doesn't move. "They wouldn't—"

Daryl waives her off with the quick flex of his hand as he tries to work this out—  _Did they have to run? What from? Is there anything out there, in the darkness? Is the camp secure? Are they surrounded or abandoned?_

Gravely they turn their eyes again on the camp – the camp they've sat in and waited in all night, seeing now what they should have noticed long before. Everything's changed: this is not the home they've lived in for close to three months. The place they stand in now is empty, and desolate.

"Wouldn't leave…" she whispers, ignoring his signal for silence. "They wouldn't just leave." In this void she is rendered so small, insistent in her will to make true what she speaks, to make herself believe what sounds she makes. "They wouldn't just leave."

Daryl shoulders the crossbow. "They would," he says definitively, "if there was a herd, if there was another group." He leans in behind her and palms one of James' books, jamming it into his back pocket, then breaks away back into action, keenly eyeing the woods around them, trying to put it together. "Simon said as much the first night. Sign of trouble, they evacuate. Someone wants the camp, they give it over."

"But," Beth blinks, handling her hilted knife, unsteady where her feet hold her to the ground, "no one's here. No one's taken the camp. …" She looks around. "No herd came through here." Beth looks to him for confirmation, but she already knows this is true.

Miserable, Daryl's head shakes imperceptibly, his voice breaks. "No."

In the eerie silence broken only but the ever-running creek and the repeated cry of a mockingbird, the shadows of their missing comrades seem to loom and haunt.  _Where are they? What has happened?_

"…They could be coming back…" She doesn't like the look she gets.

Beth pulls the flashlight from her bag. They scour the camp, looking for tracks, looking for signs of a struggle, looking for anything that will leave some trace of a clue as to what happened, what drove those seven jostling resilient boys from camp. But there is little to find. Personal items, some clothes, some blankets, cooking gear, all still there. Weapons, gone. Packs, gone. Food, gone. Group, gone.

"Daryl—" Beth chokes. He's by her side in an instant, looking at what she's uncovered beneath her own pillow, where it's never been before. John's Glock pistol, the only weapon left behind aside from the quiver of unfinished arrows. Daryl glances from it to her uneasily, then pulls it out. This was not on oversight. John did not just happen to leave this behind when all other weapons were extracted. This and it's half-full magazine was left for them. Its wordless message echoes in that small space:  _arm yourself._

"Uh, uh," he shakes his head, backing out, leaving Beth behind staring at the bed. "We gotta go. —  _Beth_ ," he presses. "Get movin'."

He sweeps the grounds with the light. The ground is rifled with footprints, as it always is; there's no way to make out alien footprints from those that ought to be there. Beth's chest and throat constrict as her face grows hot and flushed. Panic sets in; breathing stiffens— " _Daryl_?"

Daryl signals for her to stay where she is and with flashlight and crossbow he leaps to the other bank and looks, for tracks, for clues. Nothing. If there'd been anything they'd already trampled over it. There's the pig and the fire, not much else. Wordless he crosses back to camp and scrambles down the face of the ledge. Shining the light this way and that, he searches. There are footprints, but the riverbank is mostly stones, and all of camp walks the embankment each day. It's too dark, too overlapped to make out any definite trail. He flashes the light across the river—

"—Daryl." Above him Beth's voice is quiet and grave. At once his head lifts towards her, abandoning the study of the prints at his feet, then he leverages himself to climb back up to her. Her face is ashen white, and Daryl's trained eyes follow hers. In the dirt, between the huts, where her gaze is focused, is a small splatter of blood.

He looks, and he winces. It isn't walker blood. Even in the dark he can see that. As if in physical pain he cringes, and then he moves to action. He's back in the huts, grabbing from them what little gear and goods remain in camp. Crossing once more back to the pig, Daryl hastily snatches up what meat can be transported, then crosses back and sinks the bridge boards in the river with a kick. Their two daypacks in hand, Daryl stuffs them with supplies: clothes, blankets, tools. He throws canteens to fill at Beth but she only stands there. "Fill 'em, Beth," he commands her sternly as he moves quickly through their borders, making split-second calls on what to leave and what to keep. "Com'on, g't goin'," he urges her, not cutting, but urgent all the same. "Can't stay here. Beth—" The sound of her name repeated breaks her into action, and she fills their three canteens and a fourth she's able to find. This is a thing she can do. In the face of this breakdown of their world, in this way she can act. Getting water — she can see this little bit through until things clarify. Across from her Daryl's already shouldering his pack and weighing the weight of Beth's before he hands it to her. "Com'on." Beth doesn't stir. " _Beth_ ," he says, gesturing at her with her pack. "Can't stay here."

Beth's eyes focus strangely on the packs "… We're going after them, right? We'll track them; catch up, find them?"

"Dunno." His breaths are quick and single-minded, "Tracks 'r weak." He holds the pack out to her once more, and his voice drops with defeat, "Com'on. It's time."

"We don't have to leave— We go after them, bring them back—"

Daryl shakes his head. "We do. This is what leavin' looks like." It kills him to say it. "They ain't comin' back."

"They could. Whatever this is, whatever made them leave, they could come back. That's the plan — if something happens, leave for a day; leave the camp behind and come back to what's left. They can come back."

"Baby—" Daryl mutters, visibly upset, "that ain't what's happ'ning."

Beth's eyes search his expression for something she can hold onto, "You don't know that for certain."

"The blood," he levels at her feet. "Jo Jo's gun. There're footprints, Beth. Lots of 'em. Not ours, not theirs. On the far bank. Somebody came."

Beth doesn't bother with asking  _who_ ; she knows there's no answer to be given. The asking would be a reflex from another time. Her body knows she should be in full action by now, but moving makes this one more home she's leaving, one more group lost. It's building in her like a storm.

"Rounds fired las' night could've brought groups in." He looks away, anxious to be gone. "If they was anyone good, they would've waited. If our people left 'cuz they'd wanted to, they would've packed their shit, left word. They was taken, forced off." Daryl swallows grimly. "Com'on, put this on," he extends the pack to her once more, "we gotta move. Can't stay here."

"We can track them, we can find them." Daryl checks the crossbow. "D _a_ ryl—"

"We're gonna try. Listen, there weren't no struggle, not from any sign in the camp, which means whoever this is they had numbers, and they had firepower. Couldn't be anything else. They didn't let them wait for us. We got one crossbow, couple knives, a revolver with two rounds and a pistol with eight. You saw the blood."

Beth shoulders the pack he's been pushing at her, and handles the pistol. "Which way?"

Daryl eyes her, the camp, raises the bow, and jerks his head to the lower bank. Beth follows him and they scale the ledge to where Daryl spotted the tracks. He shines the light and two pairs of eyes scan. Then Daryl catches it. He signals wordlessly, and they step into the creek, the icy water flooding their shoes and biting at their skin.

They cross the water, fighting the current, and Daryl leads them into the woods. The pace they keep is driven but calculated. Her whisper travels with them over the crunch of leaves and stones underfoot. "How far behind are we?"

"Hours. Five; could be more." He crouches some as walks, covering ground with speed and close study. "There," he points. "See, there's a lot of 'em. Could be fifteen." His eyes catch hers and his lip worries. "Can't take you into that."

Beth's severity battles his instinct to protect her. "We can't not go. An' you can't do this on your own. They're not gonna be expectin' us. We can take them in an ambush. We can set walkers against them. You were right not to go after our weapons before, but this is people. The baby's not an excuse." She blinks. "It may not come to gun fire."

Daryl's head shakes gruffly, pulling them back on course. "If they got taken, then they got muscle, an' artillery. Not for nothin', but our boys ain't battle tested; not with the living. The people we're trackin' 've got whatever they came in with and all we had in camp." He steps carefully. "We don't got the ammo or the numbers."

"The boys will help." She looks at him, "We can get this done."

It's madness to follow. They're under-armed, outpaced, following what kind of people they don't know, when it'd be safer to turn the other direction and run. They've left their camp, lost their group, and in the chaos there's Beth Greene, whom he's most beholden to protect, pushing for a fight. He thinks, as they scramble and run, keeping coverage under the branches, behind the foliage, of the secret she carries inside her; he doesn't want to risk her in a battle. He'd run with her in the opposite direction if he could, but that's not who they are. That won't keep them going.

They run. Beth stretches her legs to keep up. They follow the trail, veering away and back from the river. The tracks are cold, hours old by now, cut over by walkers and squirrels and field mice. Daryl and Beth move quickly in the dark, assisted by the night vision goggles Beth had carried in her pack all day. They keep up their stride, knowing they're hours behind. They'd wasted time. Too much time.

Early on they passed one of the fires. It was dying, but it still burned. There was nothing there, but burning flesh. A few times they run into walkers. They kill, and they run. They do not use the guns. Hours pass, and they barely stop to rest. A rustling follows them. Together they turn in formation and ready. The first walker breaks through and Daryl releases the trigger and shoots. He retrieves the arrow under Beth's coverage, who takes another down with her knife. Daryl pivots and strikes hard at a third, forcing the reclaimed arrow in at the temple then kicks it away. Beth, off balance some from her pack, pushes one back from her, then shoves it once more as it lurches forward again; swiping her knife at it it stumbles and she kicks it down, expunging it with a forceful stomp. Behind her with a driving thwack, Daryl drives the butt of his crossbow into two more then fires into the last. The night is still again, save for their breaths. Wordlessly they check in, then regroup and resume.

Daryl re-grips his bow and trudges on. "Count your rounds. Ammo's low; hold fire till you got a clear shot."

"I know."

He knows she does, but he doesn't stop. "You take a shot, take cover somewhere else. Don't be where they know you are." Beth nods. She knows this. Their speed quickens. "If things go wrong, you run. Not to camp. We get separated, run north; tallest tree. Stay there. Give it an hour, then run. Keep off the highway, find—"

"Daryl—" she cuts him off. "We're not there."

He huffs and nods, and ducks under a low branch. He glances back, his sharp eyes hold her steady, and then he doubles his pace. "Keep up."

They journey on.

Up ahead in their path claws a snarling gnawing broken figure. A walker, crumpled over on itself. Beth moves in to strike it down with her knife, but when doing so she stumbles backward. Distraught and heaving, she retches like she's going to be sick. Daryl steps in; pushing her back, he raises his blade evenly in a forceful drive – then he sees it. His striking hand wavers. There's a shudder, then contact. The blow is forceful and solid, meeting blunt resistance. Then he too stumbles back, surrendering his knife. Daryl's face creases and shadows with disgust. And pain.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope the wait wasn't too long. Can't say when the next chapter will be up. As always, feedback is appreciated more than you know. Hope you all are well, thanks for your continued reading! xx

" _Fuck! Fuck!_ " Daryl paces, agitated and riled, out of his head. Behind him Beth doubles over and is sick. Michael's face, ashen, grey, already sunken in and hollow, is cut open by blood. Viscous and gruesome Daryl's knife sticks forsaken in the impaled skull. " _FUUUUUCKKK!_ "

Beth's involuntary convulsions over, she lifts her flushed hot face to face once more the too real horror. As the shock wears off, their eyes travel reluctantly back to him. There he lies, broken and crumpled on the ground, abandoned, like everything he ever was, ever thought, ever did never mattered. Now he's just another corpse, fallen on a path. His body, lurking in wait, had been slumped over itself, now they see: his previously broken leg is bent back unnaturally from a secondary trauma – whether sustained before or after death is indiscernible. What killed him is the ruthless knife slash to his throat.

Shakily her fingers reach out to him; ruefully Beth makes contact across the divide with another friend who's been lost and turned. It's inevitable, this end. Whether through violence or otherwise, it lies in wait for them all. She's reconciled herself to it. She's lost all her family to it, save for Maggie – and maybe by now her as well, but nothing cuts the cruelty when it stares her in the face as it does now, when she can touch the loss.

He's cold, and the gash in his neck gapes open in its hateful blackness. Helpless and too late, her hands fall to his chest. Lifeless.  _Michael_. Her palms, gentle with reverence and remorse, linger in the thickness that spilled from his mortal cut. So much blood. She moves her hand away; the gash he wears is straight and quick. So clearly the heartless blade never hesitated in it's strike, held heavy at the hilt.

For the first time, in a long time, she finds herself near tears. "Michael…" Beth's attention does not leave him. "Why would they do this?" Her eyes fail to focus on anything to make sense of. "Why take them and then—"

"His leg," Daryl grumbles miserably. "Couldn't keep up, they ended it."

"They left him to turn…" Beth touches his face, still boyish though horribly altered. "How long? How long has he—?"

"We could still be hours behind. More." Daryl steps back, away from the thing that this morning had been Michael. The goofy kid who'd made that camp their home. In stepping back Daryl's foot catches on something, unstable and teetering beneath him. His weight tilters and he turns to stabilize. Daryl shines the light as he does, then he focuses, and freezes. The light shudders in his grip. "—Beth."

At his urging Beth wipes her eyes and turns. The light is poor and she must squint to see what he does. "Oh, no—" Still looking, Daryl hasn't moved. The callus gunshot, direct through the brow, is truly terrible. " _James…_ "

The name spoken releases Daryl from his wounded stupor; he sniffs and looks away, wiping at his face. "We're too late."

Daryl turns away, he cannot take the carnage. Sunken hearted, Beth drops to her knees before the body. James– who had been a friend, something close to a brother to both of them; who had fought for more than a year beside these forest bothers for a different kind of life from what the rest of the living world seems to be descending into. He'd risked everything to get back to his family at the start, to get them out; when his own family shrunk to just he and John, he grew a new family with trust and faith; he'd worked with Peter and the others to set a path for their survival. And for so long it had worked. Unsteadily she raises her fingers to shut his blank staring eyes. Daryl kicks hard at a tree.

Somberly her eyes slowly follow him. "Daryl… They're still out there. The others."

"They killed them, Beth. Whoever these people are – they take our guys, they kill Mike f'r not keepin' up, shoot James when he fights back." Daryl paces, distraught. Motionless Beth watches him process, letting herself mourn. In the minutes that pass them she regrets all the decisions and moments of the day that had brought them to this _. Could they have stopped it? What sequence of choices could have seen this day ending differently?_ Daryl stops the pacing. " _Beth_ —" he looks from the bodies of their friends to her. " _We can't. I'm sorry."_

"We can't not. We have to get them."

"They're still hours ahead of us; they killed two 'f us already. Beth, we can't do everything. I got to keep you safe." Like he knows that won't be enough for her he adds, "Can't cover that much ground to close the gap."

"They're out there, Daryl," she repeats stoically.  _Can there be another argument?_  In silence she looks once more at the altered Michael; she kisses her hand and presses it tenderly to James' leg, then she rises, hitches her pack, and staunchly takes a step forward.

Daryl reaches and grabs Beth back. "No." He tugs her back to him. "We ain't going no further."

" _Daryl…_ " she whispers, her voice cracked with pain and conflict. They're on their own again, the two of them — their prison family somewhere out there, seemingly lost forever, now five more as close to family gone and taken. She needs to fight for them. Ten rounds and six arrows. They have ten rounds and six arrows Peter Simon John Rob and Tom do not have to help themselves. How can they abandon them? John left them that gun, how do they not keep going? These five took them in and made them family, how do they not pursue and fight?

"They c'n make it." Daryl's voice is leaden and unmoving. It's never been his nature to give up on things. "They killed Michael and James, but if they wanted t' take 'em all out they could've done it in camp. They c'n survive." His gaze deftly avoids falling on James, "We gotta move."

Shifting past her, Daryl's calloused steady hand slips across her belly as he moves, and under his touch Beth caves. They cannot journey further; the child she's carrying that makes them three and not two has already determined this.  _Protecting the group_  means something different now. If this child is to be born, to be given a chance, the risks they take will be weighed differently.  _Family_ , again, has been redefined. The child they bring into this world needs a world in which people still fight for one another; but the child needs to be born. They'd made that call already.

But this loss, this turning away, is terrible. It is gut-wrenching, and debasing. It is not who they have survived to be. Not since the near-surrender of Michonne to the governor, not since they watched Hershel Greene struck heartlessly down, had there been this sort of loss, this sort of wretched bleakness that could be stopped if only they could act. So much of this new life they have no control over; too often they are rendered pathless, left only to react. But in this— they could keep going, though into what they cannot know. And Daryl is right, it is likely the others may live, and likely also any ambush they could stage may cause more harm than good. And they may yet escape on their own. And there is a child, still invisible to the world, to think of. And another family still out there to survive for. And going forward promises no certain outcome.

Daryl steps forward and, as compassionately as he is able, wrenches free his knife. "Come on," he mutters wretchedly, wiping it clean. "Le's get started." Robbed of animation he tugs at Beth to pull her with him. She follows, hating the steps, as does he, that distance them from friends and home. Above them the sky drags, heavy and thick. The dampness hangs on them, like the smoke does, like their pain does. This new path they cut is hard. Every new one forged gets harder, confirmation of the truth they drill within themselves: _nothing lasts_. In the black night sweat mixes with tears and dirt and ash and blood, and trails down the valleys and crevices of his face and hers. Daryl shoulders the crossbow, wipes at his eyes, and gives her pack a soft shove. They don't say it, but they know they can't go back. The camp is behind them now; there can be no returning. Tightening her pack, Beth steps away from another self-constructed life, one more home lost to violence. Somewhere near, the forest rustles with the sound of advancing walkers. It's time, and they move. Daryl leads the way briskly; through the shadows they cut back across their path and push deeper into the woods, leaving the river behind them.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh God guys! Sunday night! NO "Thank You!" Hang in there!

The heavy pounding drowns out their footfalls as they run. Not long after they'd started moving the sky broke open in great torrents upon them. Though it slows them some, the downpour agitates the walkers, stirring them from the stupors they'd long been lurking under. Without break the rain dumps down in mighty gusts that all day had been building. Water runs down Beth's and Daryl's faces, into their eyes, blurring their vision, and drips down their jaws. Their packs hang heavy from the extra weight, their water-logged clothes constrict and drag as they both fight to push their speed and keep ahead of what pursues them.

In the darkness, the light from their flashlights – broken and refracted in the downpour, does little to illuminate their path as they navigate the uneven and rocky terrain. Their route is black and wet before them, shifting with the storm – the shadowed movements materialize both into the gnashing clawing dead, and the benign rustling of the forest brush. Nothing is assuredly distinguishable in this deluge; the pair of them together run, and swerve, and duck, and when they must, bludgeon. Behind them stagger closer their pursuants, driving them forward through the mud and the muck and the unknown. Boots slosh and stick, but they keep up the pace, staying ahead of the walkers, and whatever else is out there. In a sudden flash the night lights up and the woods momentarily fill with white light and shadows before it again goes pitch. Thunder follows, crashing and close. The snarling mounts.

With crossbow upheld Daryl barrels forward, shifting his eyes forward and back, keeping tabs on their path, on Beth, and the walkers following them. Beth scrambles after him; weighted down though she is by the heft of her drenched pack, she exerts her will and pushes herself to keep up, to stay agile. They're wet and cold and winded; it's the second night now they haven't slept, but if their bodies are aching for shelter, warmth and a bed, it's their spirits that are truly plagued, tormented by the greater discomfort – the battle to survive, and the complex reconciling of surviving friends. The humid rain can hammer down on them all night, it's fear and grief that torture them.

They have nowhere to go, no cover to take; no prospects, no direction. They move on, letting the rain fall down on them, waiting for the worst of it to pass. Again the light flashes, briefly betraying a glimpse of another crowd of walkers. " _Shit!_ " Daryl curses. They're being closed in on on two fronts. The dead seem to be advancing from nowhere.

"Daryl!"

"Stay tight—" They correct their heading and move forward, keeping their formation.

Through the rain they scramble over slopes and inclines, over rocks and brush and leaves and roots. Daryl keeps her ever ahead of him, keeping when he can one hand at her elbow to help her climb should she need it. She runs with gun in hand, knife ready at her hip, he with bow armed and raised. The herd swarms in pursuit, they seem to be closing in from every direction. Beth and Daryl keep their eyes ahead, training in on their escape paths, on the holes in the crowding hoards, on the routes of least resistance. They will themselves through, skirting what they can with speed and agility, taking down what is in their way, whatever gets too close. The night flashes with every round Beth fires.

Behind them they leave another makeshift home, another ad hoc future burned to ashes, another family lost. They move through violence away from violence, assuredly into further violence. Their feet move them practically by rote automation, this night's horrors have rendered them little more than automatons fighting to breathe – it is not faith or hope or love that pushes them on, it's raw survival. And though they are little themselves as they flee, still they work in unison, still they watch the other's back as their own. Still they are a pair.

Their bodies propel them forward, and wordlessly they leave behind that part of themselves they thought would stand and fight, that better self that would track down answers and those gone missing, that would stage a rescue. But some rescues come too late, and some cannot be saved, and if it hadn't been wrong to leave the fallen prison when they did and save themselves, then it cannot be wrong now — however horrible — to let that adrenaline in them push them forward away from danger: three lives, fighting for that next pump of the heart, the next influx of oxygen.

Daryl does not speak in the moments he pauses to fire a shot or reclaim a bolt or reload the bow; Beth is mute as she fires rounds into skulls. They run in league with each other, falling behind and catching up, providing coverage and extra eyes. They move, they battle, they flee, they breathe hard, and they run. They've been here before, this they can do. If they run, if they are quick, if they do not stop to breathe or think, they will make it out of this. Daryl pushes Beth ahead of him, up a craggy incline. "Climb!"

Beth runs, struggling to make it to the ridge. The downpour has not lessened, and it's flooding down the slopes in swift-moving channels; footing is difficult, but Beth manages. Behind her something claws at her and Beth twists back, firing a round into the hideous caved-in face of the rotting tearing figure lunging in too close to her. She'd slowed to take the shot, but she did not fully stop; the kickback, atop of the rain, atop the unsure footing, rob Beth of her balance; she loses her footing. Her momentum working now against her, she stumbles backward, catching her foot, then tumbles in one blurred tumult of action as her feet pull out from beneath her. Beth falls, slipping in the wet earth. So quickly does it happen, her body careens unnaturally through no doing of her own. She falls forward when she lands, hitting the wet earth hard.

Everything stops as the breath in her is knocked violently out. The impact was so sudden her vision temporarily goes black. In a silent stupor Beth's head rings; like the rest of her body the contents of her head had jogged hard as she'd hit the ground. And inside, along with her lungs and her stomach, something else shifted, tore. Daryl's in action immediately, swinging hard and bashing the crossbow into two snarling biters. He shoots another and then he's moving over her. She would lie there empty in her stunned stillness, fighting to recover some feeling of herself, but beyond her hazy blackness there is another fight being fought and through it Daryl's arm reaches down to yank her back to her feet and the skirmish; neither time nor circumstance allow her to sink away.

"Beth! Up!" he commands, tugging her forcibly to her feet and into a run. He'd dispatched three walkers in the short time since her fall but it did little to thin out the attack and they have got to move now if there is to be any chance of breaking through.

With the end tips of her reaching fingers Beth manages to grasp and keep hold of the pistol she'd let fall from her hands when her body hit hard the tangled ground cover of roots and rocks. With weapon recovered but little else including her breath, Beth follows at a brisk speed, allowing her foreign feeling body to be pushed and pulled through a treacherous web of woods and slopes and trees and walkers. There is no chance for arrow recovery as they tear through the forest — Daryl hardly has the opportunity to reload, and he must be running low. Beth stumbles over the legs that move faster than she does.

Involuntarily she stops, she cannot continue forward at this pace. Daryl's deep voice reaches her through the chaos— "We gotta move, Beth." He pulls on her arm and pushes her ahead of him by the shoulder.

They manage to travel some distance further before Beth goes immobile. "I'h can't," she pants. "I'h have to stop. I don't know what's happenin' – I have to stop." She does stop. "I have to stop," she repeats as she sinks into silence.

Daryl stands over her, his eyes flashing, this way and that, keeping watch, straining to listen for walkers through the rain and the ruckus. His breath is heavy and comes fast; like hers his chest heaves at a quick pace. Daryl affords a brisk glance in her direction, "Talk to me." He gives her a moment but when no response comes he prompts her again. "You okay? Talk to me." Daryl watches as she just sits there, cradling herself. "You been scratched? Bit? Beth!"

Beth has no words to voice the fear inside her.

Daryl's body winces as he looks at her. "Sorry, Beth. We can't stop here." Weighted by the rain and his pack, Daryl stoops to lift her up, and limply she gives in to her body being moved. For some distance as they start again Daryl half carries half supports Beth, being the weight and the will to move her when she cannot summon it from within.

In time, as the rain continues to hammer into her face, stinging her skin with each tiny hard-falling drop, Beth comes-to a little. Her small frozen hand finds his arm. "I c'n do it." And from her feet the strength to lift each leg in front of the other comes back to her. First at a walking pace, then again at a run. The woods are dangerous. Their vision is impaired – even with the aid of the goggles, their hearing is crippled, there are walkers afoot, and there is no  _there_  to get to. No sanctuary. Nothing physical to try for.

As they run into the unknown, away from what's been rendered another past, Beth has no vision of finding others. She has no hope in her to find community. She shuts herself down, to the pain and discomfort of her physical body, as does she to the terrible pain of loss.

 _Two is enough_  – Daryl and the baby. Beth shuts out every thought but this: as her muscles move her, as her bones uphold her, the steps she takes echo one thing, pound it into the earth, into her blood,  _Daryl and the baby. Two is enough._  She has two hands to hold on with, two eyes to keep watch with. She can keep these two she tells herself. She wills it to be true.  _These two._ It's occurring to her maybe two is all she can have, if she's not to have those she loves ripped from her again.  _Two. These two._  That is what she'll hold to: Daryl and their baby, all the while ever yearning for and longing for the families she's lost.

Beth had wanted people, when she and Daryl had walked days on end in the woods. She hadn't expected it, but she'd wanted them to find a place, people to settle in with. They'd found some - the best they maybe could have, but now that's over. And every stride Beth takes strengthens the lesson the world keeps hammering down so relentlessly upon her:  _You cannot keep the people you love_. So she's circling in, and the love she has left is being closely guarded.

Her body aches, she cannot breathe but somehow distance is sill being covered underfoot. They have not stopped; she knows this, but she does not feel it. She's gone numb, her fingers, her legs, her face, her heart, all save for one flicker of warmth she's holding fast to, deep inside, guarded by scar tissue. Beth does not cry.  
The families she's lost, the homes that have been destroyed, those were not her fault; it was never a case of not loving well enough, not taking care enough, but to build it all up again to have it all torn to shreds again? She won't. She can't. She cannot survive it. There is a critical mass of the dead they cannot battle and survive, so too is there for heartbreak. To see Michael was to see her mother, Shawn, Patricia, Jimmy. To see James was to once more see the blade hack violently into her father's neck. It was losing Lori, it was not finding the kids at the end of their tracks. And the others, the not knowing, amplifies the silent absence of the first family lost to them, Maggie and Glenn, and Rick, and Carl, and Michonne and Carol. Everyone. One loss mounts upon the shoulders of the others. She can't bear another loss.  _Daryl and the baby._  That's it.

Beth resigns herself to endless days on the road. She'll guard herself with no home, no creature comforts, cold nights and heated days, sunburns, bug bites, and exhaustion, all of it, all to keep from losing one more home; all to keep this essential family going. Herself, Daryl, the baby.

Herself, Daryl, the baby. It will be the rhythm of her footsteps over the hard trodden dusty roads ahead.

Herself, Daryl, the baby. It will be the rhythm of her heartbeat when she runs or fights.

Herself, Daryl, the baby. It will be the blood that courses through her still-living veins. It will pound in her head when she falls asleep, it will be the inner alarm that wakes her so often in the nights and finally at the break of day.

Herself, Daryl, the baby. There will be no room for anything else.

If there comes anything else to them as they travel, as they move, it will fall to Daryl to carry it with them. Any hope for anything more than just them three living and breathing, it will be he who holds it and feeds it. Any faith that things will work out, it's Daryl who will have to keep it. He will do this for himself, he will do this for the unborn child, he will do this for her, until Beth again can do it for herself.


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh, the chapters keep coming, which inevitably means my work and homework are lagging :( Thanks for the feedback you fabulous few, it absolutely keeps up the motivation! This is a short one, no answers. xx

The smell is nocuous. Beth swallows, conscious not to breathe through her nose. Though almost every sensation had been wrung from her overtaxed body, her sense of smell is still all too with her. As the cold damp jeans that cling uncomfortably to her begin to stiffen some and dry, the odor of dinge and muck and mildew and blood wafts all about her. The rain had stopped sometime in the long night – first reduced to a quiet drizzle, then all-together. There was no shelter to find. Finally they'd taken cover beneath a thick tangle of overgrowth and there they waited. The rain stopped, eventually light broke, the ground dried some, there's been no further sign of walkers, but still they have not been delivered. There is no deliverance. This is it. Every time they let themselves forget, the new world forges another strike against them. The rain will dry, but winter is coming and they are still exposed. The night is ended but it will come again, all too soon. They are still living, but the walkers have not been cleared. And they are very much on their own.

Beth slept some, she thinks, a hazy sleep of exhaustion. When her eyes opened and once again she was conscious of seeing she felt no reprieve, no rest from her respite. She is chilled through, possibly never to be warm again. Her body aches, and though she comes-to. the sense of dullness and detachment from the world does not abate. Motionless she sits now with legs hugged to her, waiting for nothing, waiting to be dragged once more to somewhere else. She is not aware of her body's shivering, she barley registers Daryl's disrobed figure passing back and forth before her.

Stiff and likewise drenched, Daryl had met the early dawn with industry. On his own he set a perimeter alarm line, he unpacked what he could and set the blankets and clothes to dry in what sun breaks through the forest cover. He gathered and laid out wood to dry as well, though it will be some time before any fire will catch. He checked and rechecked their food for any spoiling from the dampness, then Daryl'd put his knife to work, shaping makeshift bolts. Their ammo is low. They'd started off with little, and the night had exhausted the majority of their supply. Beth had packed what she could of the camp's unfinished arrows, and Daryl's used the morning to replenish what he can.

"Hey," he grunts, once it looks like maybe her eyes are staying focused. Beth's lashes flutter imperceptibly, and for a moment it looks as though she'd been looking for him, but then her eyes settle again on the mud in front of her, and there her eyes stay. Daryl offers her some dried meat, but she doesn't even shake her head. "Gotta drink," he tells her, not intending to be overruled by silence. "Dehydration'll get worse." When Beth doesn't move he moves to her, and with one hand cupping the nape of her neck, he makes her drink. Beth chokes some, but she does drink, then nothing. She is still, like a small animal caught where it ought not be.

Daryl eyes her through the messy-hanging shags of his wet hair. She's unresponsive. "Take them wet clothes off." He's undressed down to his drawers and bare feet; clean clothes Daryl has no need for, but dry clothes, dry boots, can mean living versus dying. Trench foot, pneumonia, exposure, even blisters, these are not to be taken lightly. "Greene." When she does nothing more than blink, Daryl pulls at her sweater himself. Slowly he peels it off, taking care not to jostle her too much. Then off come her layer of shirts; Daryl tugs them over her head, gently pulling her arms out one by one. Daryl leaves her her camisole. He would have taken it as well, but leaving her that exposed when she's this wounded seemed harsh; she'd somehow be too vulnerable without it. "'Kay," he holds out his hand to her and beckons, "bottoms."

Beth looks at him. There's distance between her and him when her words move through her lips. "I'hm bleeding," she tells him. Her voice is unsubstantial, like a faint gust of breeze.

Daryl's attention flashes to her with grim expediency. "Walker?" Beth's face and clothes are smeared with the stains of blood.  _What portion is hers?_  He looks at her, inspecting her arms, her back. "Beth?"

Beth's eyes study the splatter on her boots, the footprints she'd left in the mud; there's something about her lack of movement or engagement that has the air of being underwater. Beth is submerged. The only thing keeping her tethered to his world is the gradual tightening sensation around her legs and hips as her jeans dry about her… "No." Beth blinks, and her clear crystalline eyes find him through the haze. "Daryl," she speaks. "I'm bleeding."

The archer's eyes narrow, and he fights not to look away, not to break the connection. Like her in the night, he does not have the words. The language does not exist; words fail to convey. There can be no rendering of meaning. Their child may be lost.

Daryl winces. If he were someone else, or if she were someone else, Daryl might search for words to speak, but he does not look for words. His narrow eyes blink back what could be tears, and his face distorts with pain. Silently he sniffs, and shifts to sit beside her. His rough hand finds hers, so much colder and smaller than his own. His tanned, muscled arm wraps about her body, and keeps her close to him. Daryl would take action, if there were any action to take, but though he is a man who gets things done, there is nothing to be done, nothing that can be done. If it's happened, it's all behind them. Beth and Daryl sit with the silence, they sit with the uncertainty.

In his presence Beth finds the air to breathe. Her small frame shudders, but she breathes. Daryl's lips press to her head, and her barren eyes fall closed. Beth keeps her legs pulled tightly to her. Holding tight, she pulls herself back into her own body, tries to make it whole.

"Anythin' t' be done?" The deep raspiness of his solemn voice grounds her, keeping her close. She's lost so many homes since she met him, but she isn't lost with him.

Beth's head shakes. "Jus' the waiting."

Daryl sniffs again, wipes his face on his shoulder, and holds his eyes closed tight till again his vision clears. "You g'nna be al'right?" In this he does not speak of her heart or of her spirit.

There can be no knowing. There is no knowing their fates, or what lies in store for them, where their missing people are. There is no knowing what this means, for the child or for her. It could be an indicator of a trauma. It could signal a stressed and overtaxed body. Or this bleeding could be marking an end. Waiting is all there is.

Too caught in the darkness, too bruised and battered from such recent cutting losses, they cannot hope, they cannot exercise faith; they cannot even know if losing the child this way – if in fact they have – is not in the end for the better. There is just the reality in which they exist: there is danger, no sanctuary awaits them, they are alone, there is bleeding. And now there is waiting.

His lips press together, and Daryl gruffly nods. "Mm,hm."


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all you lovely readers: Thank you for reading, and thank you to those of you who make the extra effort to review! Reading your responses is so valuable, and so very much appreciated. This is another short little chapter, please bare with me, you might be getting a few of these until the story settles out a bit. Your empathy for these two and the boys is really lovely, and I hope you can see their trials as part of the landscape of their world, and not a plot device to yank you readers back and forth. (Do not worry too much for B&D, I've got their backs.) You might've gotten a little spoiled with these back-to-back updates, but I have a feeling that in a chapter or two they may start to dwindle for some time (running out of already-partially-written/plotted material and running out of free time for a while), I hope you'll stick around during the quiet spells.

The bleeding carried on for several days more. Not as heavy, but there, and no less unsettling. Beth is uncertain what amount should concern her and what amount could maybe give her reason to hope. All could still not be lost... But she does not know. She hadn't started showing, how much would be lost? She thinks maybe more? But then she's thin, and no doubt undernourished – would that matter? Measuring a life in her own blood is not a thing easily done. She's reticent about any estimation that may lead her to hope, or to kill hope when it should not be. Her bruised exhausted body aches all over, but the cramping's been minimal. When measured together, are these signs of life? Even if so, the bleeding cannot be good. Never has she felt so disconnected from her body, and so she remains quiet and still, and tries hard to concentrate. With all her focus, Beth Greene tries to ignite a small spark of life within her. She tries to feel a fluttering, to feel some reason to hope, but she had felt nothing even before the fall, and she can feel nothing now. Her womb is silent, but still she strains to hear it. As she'd kept herself running alongside Daryl through that dark night she'd kept the child alive inside her with adrenaline and sheer force of dogged will, but in the stillness of inaction she's lost that grip, that willful knowing. Now she does not know; now she waits. Beth whispers into herself,  _Live. Live._

The pregnancy'd frightened her – having a child when she'd never expected to, and having that child in the open – it frightened her, but now the thought of not having the child— The silence is miserable.  _Live._  She can't speak to him yet; she cannot use her voice and risk not hearing a sign. She listens, but she cannot believe. Believing, trusting, knowing – she is not able to yet. But she can command. And in that there is a sort of faith, else how else could it serve?  _Live._

They rested a day under that tangle of vines and moss and tree. Daryl scrubbed her worn and threadbare denim as best they could be, and he sat, straitening and sharpening stick after stick, forcing his hands to be busy when no thing of matter, no act for the better, could be done.

When day broke again they did not move. If Beth's body is demonstrating trauma, they cannot move. They stayed another day in their cramped alarm circle. Daryl did not hunt, Beth hardly moved. Another day came and went. By then they were dry, by then they could build a fire, by then Beth could sleep.

When the fourth day broke the shock had dissipated some. Enough that Beth would eat without being prompted, enough that Daryl could think past this grove of trees.

After a meager meal Daryl packed their bags, then helped her to her feet. There is nothing there in that spot worth staying for, but nothing ahead of them promises more. They do not walk to find something; they walk to not be sitting. They walk to not be silent and still and helpless. They walk to not be dead.

The woods change little as they navigate through them. It all looks the same to dull unseeing eyes; it all is the same to guarded hearts. Again what they have is walking, though they cover little distance. Again they're alone with nothing but what they carry. Heaviest of their loads is anxiety, grief, and remorse.  _Live._  A sort of functioning numbness follows them.

The forest too is quiet, echoing back to them their own footsteps. Without the running of the river the woods seem muted; without the jostling and joking of seven well-loved companions, the woods are desolate and haunting. Without the assurance of a child, all the world is these empty endless woods, filled only with trees and the rustling of leaves, the mocking calls of birds and the unearthly whir of insects, but absent of life. Still, every sound that stirs, Beth imagines emits windy whispers straight to her.  _Live._

_Live._

The sun sets, and then it rises, and in the interim they were on their own, and little changed.

They do not travel far in their journeying – this walking is not for want of a change in scenery. They walk because they do. They sit under new trees, and sleep under different brush, simply because it is not where they sat or slept the day before. Eventually, words find their way back to them. Eventually conversation returns — quiet and sparse, but essential.

They speak each other's names, and beneath the familiarity of their voices, their spirits called solemnly to one another. It is not in them to remain distant from the other. As Daryl strides beside her, stolid and closed in, her hand slips into his.

That slight touch, her absence of hesitation, the joint camaraderie and commiseration it evokes in him, pierces through to him, and while his heart muscle constricts, he squeezes warmly her small hand. He is not alone; he is not the last man standing. Beth Greene is still beside him, and if she is, perhaps the child's still with them too.

"Think we need to get back to roads," Beth breaks the silence. "I can't be in these woods anymore. There's nothing here."

Daryl grunts to concur. It was not without reason they'd taken to the woods, but they cannot remain there any longer. Something has to change, and if not the things they would will to be different if only they could, then setting will have to do. Once again in the woods alone, they find they are ill prepared for winter when it comes, and that, at least, they can strive to mend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Credit to Miss Emily, the line "windy whispers" is from her song (my favorite!) "Jonathan" **


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm admitting this: I got submit-happy on this one before I did a final proof-read, I just got dizzy looking at it again so I just went for it :-[ Thank you for all the comments, I can't tell you how much they help(!). As an example, a reader mentioned how it seemed like Beth was blaming Daryl for the situation they're in with the baby, and I had never meant it to read that way, so it's incredibly helpful to hear how others encounter the story. Keep it coming, please! :)

With a long gnarled branch Beth stokes the catching fire as the daylight grows dimmer. By their estimations they'll reach the highway, or some road or another, by the end of day tomorrow. It's been quiet since the storm. Aside from their knives, Beth and Daryl are down to one round and the bolts Daryl's fashioned from straight-enough branches. But they're holding on. They've encountered walkers, but not many, mostly they're still catatonic from the downpour; their takedowns have been quick. They're getting by. As the sun gets nearer to setting they settle into another makeshift campsite set within their tripwire alarm line. Daryl sharpens their knives, Beth cooks the raccoon.

They're quiet as their meal roasts, as they sit in the lengthening shadows. They can't talk about the changes of the past days; neither can they dwell on how different things had been less than a week before. Their trajectory had been unforeseeable, and it's too soon to pass time with idle conversation. They've lived in quiet together before, it'll pass; they need time.

The quick clash and scrape, strike and scratch of the two blades sharpening against each other jolt metallic sparks into the air as the fire cracks and licks. Her knife otherwise utilized, Beth uses twigs to serve the meat when it's ready. Two skewers in hand, she crosses and sits beside him. Wordlessly she hands him one.

Daryl sets the blades aside, and his eyes crease softly as they find her face, "Thank you," he grunts. In answer Beth's mouth turns up in the suggestion of a smile, it's all they can outwardly muster. They eat, and the sky fades from orange to light grey. They chew, and their vision balances blankly on the flickering flames. The night air bites at them in chilly gusts, and they inch a little closer to the flames. More blankets would be nice now, a bed to look forward to, some warmth. Neither though makes a move for a blanket in their packs, rather they sit frigid, bracing their backs to the night. Somehow it seems one thing to be eating, to be walking, to be breathing, while others they've loved are not, and never will be again, but being warm, craving comfort, seems quite another, and they can go without it, if in anyway it marks the losses. This thing they do is unspoken, unacknowledged, but mutually felt. There are no graves, no markers, no memorials; no pleasure is all they have to offer.

Behind them there's a stirring, shifting of brush and undergrowth, a light snapping of a fallen twig— In an instant they're both up and primed for action, brandishing weapons and readying for an attack. The crossbow raises, and Beth, with only one round remaining in the pistol tucked into her back waistband, grounds her feet and raises her newly glistening blade. "Who the hell's out there?" Daryl growls. Beth looks at him. "Naw—" he shakes his head, never taking his eyes off the woods "—they ain't dead." Beth's hands grip tighter to her knife. " _Come out!_ " he barks. Two pairs of blue eyes train themselves on the brush, focused, lethal, waiting. There's a rustling, then a snapping in the undergrowth, then a branch pushes back and a person emerges.

"Oh my God!" Beth gasps. Her knife drops from her fingers and she's up and running at him, choking on a laugh and a cry, pulling him into her arms. " _Simon!_ "

Daryl too lowers his weapon and moves forward with quick long strides; swelling with emotion he grips Simon firmly at the shoulder in fondness and in relief as still Beth grasps onto him, unprepared to let him go. "Anyone with you?" Daryl asks, peering dimly into the growing darkness.

Miserably Simon's towhead shakes the terrible answer. "No."

Daryl's eyes search and scan his face and figure – he's sallow, and sleep-deprived and spent; his beleaguered body has withstood and battled too much in the past days. "What happened?" Daryl questions, as finally Beth releases their reunited friend. "Who're they with?" The battle-ready gruffness behind his interrogation is tempered by the winces of pain.

"I dunno…" Simon seems lost some, hazy in the reality of actually having found these two. By the looks of him his legs may give out beneath him at any point. "… I …" his gaze wanders from her to him, to their fire, back to them "… thought the fire might be yours… I thought… I thought m'be you'd still be out here…"

"How'd you get away?" Beth asks, her hand still clinging to his arm, not ready to let him go.

"Didn't…" he gets out. "Wasn't with them when—"

Daryl's grim questioning keeps him focused, "Did'you see what happened?"

"No." The boy's misery is palpable. "They took them all… I been on my own…" He's in a daze, exhausted, hungry and dehydrated. "Michael's dead… And James…"

"We know," Daryl nods mutely.

"I was… I was out, in country," he relates. "I was harvesting greens… Fires were lit, under control, nothing more t' do; I went out. I, I don't know, I wandered, wasn't thinkin' of anything. I was just, y'know, walking…" Visibly his memory takes him back, retracing him through the footsteps taken that ultimately broke him from his brothers. "Took longer than I should'a," he continues. The teen's noticeably conflicted – the walk he took that saved his life, chance had dictated would be the difference between his survival and his friends'. It is ruthlessly random, and it is difficult to live with. "I got back," he tells them, "they were gone. All of 'em." Simon rubs dully at his face, "I took off, but I couldn't find 'em. Then the storm. Been out there on my own, five days." Beth listens and watches, and never does her hand cease rubbing his arm.

Wordlessly Daryl turns away and hands over a half-full canteen. "You been eatin' anythin'?"

Simon gulps thirstily; the rain had done him little good with no receptacle on him to collect it or contain it. He takes a breath and drinks again. "What I c'n find." The group of boys had become expert foragers, but a lot of their diet relied on trapping and fishing, and on the staples they kept in camp. Forrest greens and tuber roots had never been plentiful or substantial enough to sustain them.

Beth leaves his side only to fetch him food. On her knife she brings him three large strips of meat. "Sit," she says softly, returned to his side.

Simon does. His misery and loss are consuming, but his still-living body demands attending. Voraciously he eats, having had only greens and a small rabbit he'd had to eat raw several days back. "Set some snares," he says chewing, "but not much luck. Didn't want to waste my gun—" he chews and swallows "—only had three rounds anyways." Continuing to eat, Simon finds struggles to find the breath to speak as his pace of chewing and swallowing never slackens. "—Waited out the storm up a tree, hopin' t' Christ—" he swallows "—didn't get struck by lightning." Simon takes a breath, takes a bite, and continues, "Didn't have a go-bag with me. _Stupid_ ," he repines. "We should'a had 'em on us always."

"What you got on you?"

"Now?" Simon clarifies. "Cashed out revolver an' a machete." His head shakes, "Had nothin' t' start a fire – left it all with, Pete."  _Peter, John, Rob, Tom, where are they now?_

These names, these thoughts, cast a dark pall overhead, and Simon's countenance grows cloudy. Daryl and Beth let him eat. The evening fades to black around them, leaving only the fire's small circle of light to aid their vision. "Here," Daryl mutters, and he reaches behind him to his pack and rummages until he pulls something out. Daryl extends his arm, and packed frantically that night, but the aces the thing in Simon's hands. It's the night goggles. Little from camp came with Beth and Daryl when they'd frantically packed what they could, but the binoculars had made it out with them. Daryl has nothing else to offer, save James' book, now warped and drying thick and curled from the rain. Simon's handles the glasses, turning them over in his hands. These are not his friends, they carry no meaning in them, but they had belonged to all of them, and now only he is left to hold them. Simon's thumb rolls without out purpose of the lens dials, feeling the uniform grooves beneath his skin; there is a haunting in the objects people leave behind…

Sitting there across him, watching him with the artifact of an already distant life, Daryl recalls his and Beth's first night in camp, when he'd stood watch with Simon, uncertain of who they'd fallen in with. He remembers how the fair-haired kid, a good half-foot shorter than himself, with those big military glasses resting on his brow, had sounded much older than his fifteen years as he talked him of his friends, of their camp, of their family. Beth also watches Simon in the glow of the campfire; her heart full, it clings to this one return – the first reunion since the day long back when the prison fell. Beside her Daryl snaps twigs methodically between his thumb and index finger, repeatedly, over and over. The brittle breaking of the wood punctuates the silence and the absences that should be filled. When he's out of twigs to break Daryl speaks. "We had t' stop," the heavy raspiness of his words increases the confessional quality of this statement. "After Michael an' James, we turned around." Simon nods in silence, he understands. There always had been a solemn pragmatism about him. "Conscripted, seems like," Daryl adds darkly.

In time Simon's young harried face looks to both of them, lit by the darting, leaping shadows of the pit fire, "Do we go back to camp?"

"Naw," Daryl's head shakes with his grunt. "Can't."

"We're headin' to the highway," Beth tells him. "A day more, you never would've found us."  _If she hadn't have fallen, if they hadn't had to have taken their time – staying put for as long as they did, keeping the slow pace they did, they never would have found Simon; he would have been left out there all on his own._  "They were all together?" she speaks softly. "All taken? You sure?" She has to ask; finding Simon gave her cause to hazard to hope.

"They're gone," Simon confirms. "I don't know where."

Daryl shakes his head in a sort of cringe; he scoops up the twig pieces and chucks them into the flames. "Sorry," he murmurs in the dark.

The night lingers on Simon's answer, "No one makes it out alive."

When they sleep that night, Daryl lies beside Beth, holding her to him as he always does, and Beth, tucked warmly into him, holds Simon's hand tightly in hers.

In the morning they three rise, eat quickly, and with Simon shouldering the second pack, they head north in search of a road in a new direction.

As they walk, Beth trails some behind, finding comfort in watching these two people in her life remaining at all times in her vision.  _They found Simon. One MIA recovered. If they could him, they could still maybe find others. It's not just the two of them. And if it can be three, perhaps it can be four. Perhaps they already are four…_  Beth walks, keeping her eyes on a weathered pair of wings and a dirty blonde head.  _Live,_  she intones. _Live._ Thinking it can make it be so…

Ahead of her Simon and Daryl walk, Simon with machete at his hip and Daryl with crossbow slung across his shoulder. They talk little as they go, exchanging few words, and Beth makes no especial effort to catch what is said between them; it is enough for her to see them there, and silent she follows after. At some distance out Simon glances back over his shoulder, then again looks straight ahead. "Beth okay?" he asks. "The baby okay?"

Daryl's stony expression twitches. His long strides do not waiver. "She fell," he grunts.

No words follow, only forward motion as on they walk. Simon is terribly sorry to hear this. The baby's a thing he's been holding on to; often he's found himself thinking on it, and hoping on its behalf. It tears at him to hear in Daryl's tone, and to read in his stark absence of words, there may be no baby to hope for, but he knows they have no need for him saying so. They're sorry enough on their own. The three of them walk on.

_Live._

_Live._

_Live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably it for a while unless I get a sudden flash of inspiration. Thanks everybody! xx Jody  
> ** [To clarify, because I think some readers misread the line I wrote above, this story is not over. It never will be till it says "complete". I have long had bits and pieces written for chapters long ahead of where we now are, it just takes time to fill in the blanks in between and to get there, or for the present moment, I'm mostly out of snippets I've worked on for this moment in the story.] Thanks for your support! Lots of love!


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ergh, couldn't stay away! (Action research & lit review be damned...) Thanks so much for all the valuable feedback! xx

They reached the highway and each looked in either direction, and when neither boasted of an easier or surer path, they headed northeast, back in the direction from which they'd come, of the prison and the farm and Atlanta. The feel of asphalt underfoot again took some getting used to, feeling strange after journeying so long over only the overgrown forest floor of the woods. They walk sometimes side-by-side, sometimes single file, sometimes with one of them trailing ahead or lagging behind. They walk, leaving behind them so much, looking for yet another new beginning.

When they're come across, cars are checked and scavenged. Rarely do they find anything of much use – never finding food, never finding fuel. The day's grown late on their second day of walking when they come to a town by late afternoon. Beth thinks she may have been there once, long ago, with her mother maybe, but she does not look at it that way: it's just another grouping of abandoned buildings, maybe or maybe not holding some portion of whatever will help them to survive. They try three shops, a small sporting goods storefront, a barbecue joint, and a consignment shop. For their effort and walkers killed they get two knives, a third backpack, two blankets more, three arrows, some sacks of souvenir biscuit mix, a bottle of barbecue sauce, a small tub of dry rub, some soap, a winter coat for Simon, and a second machete. If they were making a camp they might have taken more, but making camp in the first town they come to is not the job they have. And they do have a job.

Weary, and not in need of much that can still be rummaged free from an already ransacked town, they three run through only two houses. They pick up some batteries, some takeout packs of soy sauce, a small glass jar of mashed pears, a half-full canister of popping kernels, toothpaste, flashlights, an expired bottle of vitamins, warm clothes and fresh socks, two over-the-counter pain killers, four flathead bullets and seven casings, and a bottle of crystallized honey. They want weapons, but there isn't much to be found; they want easy food, but it's mostly long gone; they make do with what they get. They spend the night in the third floor of a brick office building, Beth on some mid-level executive's leather industrial sofa, Daryl and Simon on the floor beside her. When the sun rises so do they. They leave town by way of checking cars. When – to no one's surprise – none start, they make for the highway, expunging some numbers of the stumbling, pacing, ever advancing dead as they do.

They carry on like this for days, walking, scavenging, picking over forgotten artifacts of another time, then moving on. They take rests, longer ones than Beth and Daryl ever had on their own. Her body needs to rest. Most nights they find a way to sleep indoors, some nights they do not. In traces of conversation they make the outlines of a plan.  _Find a place – find the right place to stay and build up. Regain strength, collect weapons, outlast the winter, make things work._

* * *

For weeks Beth walked and rose and slept and ate and spoke and kept silent, not knowing if her child was still with her. For weeks she took steps forward, never knowing if they brought her ever closer to one day seeing her baby's face, or if every stride took her further and further from the tiny family that almost had been hers. There existed no signs to guide her, it was just too soon, too early for definite indicators to manifest; she feared harnessing her hope to what she could not rely on, so as best she could she disbanded all her hoping, deferring it until she could trust it. Like her companions, Beth steered her focus on shelter. But there is more to their journeying than shelter — they look for more than position, more than walls and more than defensibility. Daryl never says it, but he's looking for people.

Several weeks on the road, under a low layer of clouds that block the autumn sun, leaving everything blue and grey and cold, Simon passes her the bottle of water he carrying at his hip. Beth looks at it, and Simon looks at her, at her and the couple of pebbles he's noticed her sucking on and moving about in a pocket in her mouth. "Drink, if you're thirsty. We've got the water." Leaving the river had marked a stark deficit in their water supply – now mostly it comes from toilet tanks or filtered from pools still left from the rain – but it's working. So far it's been sustainable. She can drink if she's thirsty.

Beth accepts the canister. "I'm not especially."

Simon squints a cockeyed smile at her, "You just really missing chewing gum?"

"Huh?"

"You've got rocks in your mouth. Y'hungry?"

Beth's head shakes a slight 'no'. She was hardly thinking when the small chunks of hardened mineral made it from her hands past her lips; she certainly hadn't considered anyone would take note – chewing idly on twigs is not uncommon amongst them. Up ahead by some paces Daryl glances over his shoulder at them. "Whatch'ya do _in_ '?" he asks her.

"Nuthin'." Beth fashions her voice light and girlish, they way it sounds when her dimples are more defined, they way she's always had of deflecting unwanted attention. Daryl studies her for a brief moment, then again faces forward, whistling into the woods to see what animals stirred. None did, and they walked on, down the highway, towards the next town.

That night in bed, wrapped in blankets in the back office of a small accounting firm, with Simon sleeping some feet away, Daryl speaks to her in a low tone. "Them rocks o' yours—" his brow waits in expectation as Beth's eyes find him and focus "—they sparkle some? Kind'o rough, an' granular?" She yawns in answer. "Beth?" he stirs her some with a shifting of the shoulder he lies on.

" _Hm_?" Beth curls into him, hardly able to keep her mind awake to listen to him, much less to answer.

"Those rocks Simon 's on'ya a'bout – they glimmer? They rich in color?"

"… _Daryl_ …" she sighs into his chest as she tries to sleep.

"You got any o' 'em on you? Greene?"

"… _Mph_ …" she turns over. "… _Pocke_ t…"

Daryl sits up and reaches his fingers into each of her exposed pockets till he pulls out four good-sized pebbles, jagged in their edges, rough to the touch. Daryl leans back, keeping the small rocks in his hand. One by one they pass under his thumb as he rolls over the pebbles in his palm, turning them over, lending his attention to each. In the dark of the room he can just catch the smallest glints of something as the sedimentary formations shift in the near nonexistent light. " _Beth_." He says her name again, this time lowering his lips closer to her ear, "Beth." She does not stir, she does not speak, but Daryl sees her eyes open, and he knows she's at least partly listening. "Rocks got iron in 'em; these rocks got iron in 'em." Beth's slow involuntary breathing takes in another deep breath, he isn't making sense to her, but she'll let his words soothe her to sleep. "Girl—" he speaks, jarring her to better attention "—if your body's tellin' ya you need this, it's your body tellin' you you're anemic. Your blood's low in iron. Beth—"

Tired though she is her blue eyes are on him now, active and searching.  _And?_  her eyes implore him; his conclusion is cloudy but she's taken his intended meaning. "'…Cuz I am, or 'cuz … I'm not?" Daryl does not answer, but she presses, knowing he must have some notion either way, or he would not have ventured saying anything at all.

"Could be you're not," he mutters flatly.

Beth's known this for weeks; she knows there was blood. But, in these days, through these many days of walking and willing the outcome she so desperately wants, it continues to come to her: the thought that perhaps it was not enough, not enough to signal the end of even that small a life. And had it been so much to render her anemic? It's lessened now, been less regular, in these years with less food assurance, less rest and greater physical demands, but Beth has seen her body lose blood many times for many years, she'd never been anemic before... Lying there Beth thinks of how the pebbles had glinted in the roadside, of how she'd just seen them and unthinkingly known what they would taste like, what it would be to have them in her mouth. She had known that she should do it. It wasn't even as half conscious as that, she'd simply known to do it.

Something strains and lifts within her heart. Maybe this could be a sign – possibly all was not lost, and if she lets it, her body will rest and recuperate and once again grow strong, and in time it will tell her what she's waiting to hear. Maybe one day her jeans will not be able to fasten, maybe one day her body will swell and show her. It is a chance; it is a thing to hold on to.

The days wear on. They move from road to road, from town to town, from one dead car to another. As they do Beth's glimmer of hope stealthily transforms itself into a silent stalwart belief. She does not speak the words, she does not tell Daryl, in her body she feels no discernible difference – save for the pebbles she did not discard – but she believes. She knows. Without knowing anything she believes she knows. Believing keeps her going.

In all these weeks they have not stopped to settle in. The weather does not demand it yet so they do not stay put. They have no reason to, each of them is mobile, nothing anywhere they've been has compelled them to stay; they have found no other people. Days pass them, one like the other: they kill walkers, they search for food, they travel light, and they keep their eyes open. And Beth makes herself believe.

Beth's eyes open in the night, something woke her, startled her to wakefulness. She looks around – all is as it was in the real estate office where they've set up for the night. Beside her Daryl's breathing is quick and restless. " _Daryl,_ " she whispers to him. She keeps her face close to his as she waits for him to wake. " _It's all right_." Daryl's eyes dart open to her. The blue flashes back and forth as gradually he takes her in, and when he sees her the lines in his kind haggard face deepen. Harried, Daryl exhales the breath he'd been unknowingly holding. " _Hey,_ " she smiles at him, softly in the quite darkness. "You all right?" Unsettled, Daryl flinches some and uses the back of his knuckle to wipe away at his face. Silently he sniffs. Still so close to him, Beth slips her hand into his. Daryl looks at it there, resting in his own, warm and solid. Real.

"Had'a dream," he finally says.

"About me?" Something in the way he's looking at her, holding onto her hand, put it in her head, prompted her to ask.

Again Daryl sniffs and breathes. " _Mm,hm_ ," his soft gaze balances on her. "An' Rick—" Daryl's voice is even heavier and more gnarled in the solemn darkness "—'n Glenn 'n Carol."

"So it was a good dream," she smiles faintly, snuggling back into him, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb Simon. Her head rests on his still heavy breathing chest, and her bare legs — despite the growing cold, she's found herself no longer able to bring herself to sleep in her filthy constricting jeans — wrap tighter about him in their makeshift bed. As she speaks, her eyes lift up and back as though she could almost see him there behind her while she lies against him. She likes to hear his heart beat. "They tell you where they were?"

Daryl's head shakes imperceptibly. "Mm,mm. But, they were alive, and—" he stops himself. Daryl breathes. "An' you—" something is his deep hoarse voice waivers and threatens to break. "You—" he starts over. Beth snugs herself in tighter to him. "—You were a mother." That word comes loaded with so much emotion it is tough to construct. Against him he can feel Beth's breath stop. "Beth?"

The breath she finally takes is audible. "—There was a child?"

Near motionless as they remain, she feels his eyes shake his answer 'no.' "You w're round," he manages. "So beautiful– I had my hand on you, underneath I felt it kick." Daryl sniffs and blinks back what he feels too deeply. He can sense her young face fixing on his words, listening so intently. "I could feel it – swollen in your belly – a heartbeat." Beth breathes; a half sob shudders in the smallest spaces between them. His sad open eyes find her, and her chest constricts when she looks at him, so desperately does she want to make things all right for him, all right for herself. "—It was right there—" Daryl's small husky whisper sounds in the dark, sad and lonesome and haunted. Wrecked, Daryl brushes back a tear and swallows his emotions down. He would turn away from her, curl into himself and turn his back to her, but he's meant to be past that with her, so very far past that, thus he fights the urge to shut down and turn inward, instead remaining as he lies, exposed, inert, and helpless. So caught is he in the agitation of his misery, unable to focus it or endure it, he remains restless on his back, fists clenching and unclenching, expression tensing and worrying. Battling inner chaos he exhales like a bull, raging in a pen.

To reach him, Beth's cool fingers touch the haggard scruff of his jaw, and she holds his face to hers and makes him feel her presence – "Daryl," she speaks to him in hushed tones, "I'm here." Her eyes remain fixed on him though he's refusing to let his eyes find her, then again he sniffs and exhales and shifts his worn out body, and then all at once she's caught up in his steely arms. Spurred from his remoteness Daryl must reach out to her in this, tucking her in a sort of fervent headlock he brings her in by the crook of his arm. There, sheltered privately together by blankets and blackness and the heat of the other's aching body, they breathe together, in time and in league. His attention holds her to him, but it is not with his eyes he sees her. Daryl is pulled to her in misery and solace, in despair and in hope, in the absence of life and in the mortal fight to preserve it. In their impassioned embrace heartbeats quicken, tempered though they remain by the severity of life and loss. His face, damp with the stains of solitary tears, finds hers and Daryl's urgent mouth closes on Beth's. If she is near he needs to feel that she is, if she is real he needs to know it. Messed up as he is he will take comfort in her; he will lose himself in something better than the world if he can. Beth – still breathing, still fighting, still believing – is better than anything still remaining in the world, and he finds himself mindlessly driven to draw himself into her, to feel when her heart beats, to measure every shortened breath of hers against his skin, to taste the rush of blood stirring while he both cradles her and forages her. Almost aggressive is he with the shedding of impeding clothing as he pulls her down to him. Circumstances have not brought them to romance or even desire – this is more urgent, more vital, more primal in its nature – suddenly he must know she's alive, he must feel her warm, her chest rising and falling with each heated quickened breath beneath him; so moved Beth pulls at him, she too undone by the riotous mandate of her body. It is not beautiful, but it is true, and as honest as they can be with one another. Daryl's soft grunting is wild and untamed as he takes her in their bed, blindly uncovering new life with her. Unrelenting, his passion is animalistic as Daryl holds her small waist arched to his. Aching for what he cannot name, he grasps her pretty face and angels her sweet mouth to him to be devoured. In muted silence his tongue finds hers, his lips and fingers tangle in her life and her strength and her undying will. Feverishly, desperately, gravely, and with hope he presses to her, allowing himself some relief, some connection, some direfully needed bolstering of their love. In the wild, in the darkness, in the wake of grief and unflinching, agonizing uncertainty, Daryl makes love to her, insisting with every thrust and grasp and breath and release that they remain as they once were: alive in love and in unison.

The times do not permit them happiness or joy, not lasting, but this tangled night affords them comfort and solace and an end to isolation. Beth's soft silent gasps for breath catch in his ears as she clasps him to her, moving always with him, following his lead, ever in sync. Exhaustion does not stop them, the threat of walkers roaming beyond their walls does not hinder them, the proximity of Simon, the losses they've incurred do not impede them; there is a vitalness that chases their endeavor until they finish, muted, still grieving, but somehow, in some way, restored.


	45. Chapter 45

Beth kept the faith, she kept Daryl close, and she kept the pebbles. Knocking them lightly around the back of her mouth most of each day as they walked, Beth let the mineral rocks and the expired pilfered vitamins help as they could. She can only fuel her body with what they have, so what they have would have to be enough. She drank water, only half remembering what it used to be to take a drink and not fight the taste. She battled her forever-altered sense of smell, and she battled exhaustion, and more than anything – with Daryl – she battled the not knowing. Ambiguity plagued them but they found in themselves the strength to resist. They could not know what there was no sure way of knowing, but they could govern themselves under a policy of not surrendering. And this is what they did. They moved forward, they kept their heads up, and bolstered their hearts as much as they were able. With Simon they sustained conversation, at times they even laughed. Life was not terrible. It could be sweet, there could be humor mined from it, and companionship. The past not forgotten, still they are not alone; this they do not forget. It is together that they live, and fight, and together find some degree of pleasure in living again. Georgia turns sharp gold and crimson all around them, the air is cool and crisp, the skies suspend clear and vast above, and they are there to see it. So under bundled clothes, mittens and hats, and the weight of their packs, they keep at it, letting life discover them as it will.

It must have been gradual, laying in wait, much like their romance had, but one day it was evident, it was just there: the convex shape to her abdomen. No longer was it flat, and one day, unlike the day preceding it, her jeans needed stretching and a bit more of a tug to meet and fasten. One day, like the long weeks before it, she hadn't known, and then one day, she just did. Beth knew. Unequivocally she knew.

She found Daryl outside, working on an engine in the street, seeing if he could bully it into working. Beth stepped into the morning light from the house they'd made camp in, quiet and serene, feeling whole, and powerful and touched by fortune. The road ahead of them had not lessened in its severity, their path still is fraught with peril and insecurity, perhaps more so, but she stands there feeling buttressed and stalwartly prepared.

From the threshold she watches him stooped and bent over the vehicle's open engine, leaning against the raised hood, working to bring the thing to life. He doesn't look up to glance at her, but he does straighten some and scratch at his bearded jaw, "Mornin'." Beth would wait, stand there just watching him – she admires the figure he cuts, loves to watch him when he's like this, capable and sure-headed – but it is not for her to know and for him to not.

Without speaking, without needing to, with so much more than empty words between them, Beth approaches and takes his hand in hers. Rough and grease covered as it is, she takes it and presses it lightly to the physical embodiment of their faith and hope and love. The smallest swell, but definite and true. All is not lost. Life still breathes. Love still lives. Hope is still sometimes rewarded in this world. Faith still takes shape and bears substance. Children still can be born. Theirs will be. Theirs will have the chance. All is not darkness, all is not death and loss and contagion and savagery. There are still Daryl Dixons and Beth Greenes. And now, still, there is a child – growing, waiting, and like its parents, fighting to survive. More than that – fighting to  _live_. Beth feels too small to house the emotion rising within her; it beams through her wet and sparkling eyes, through her pretty steady smile. She watches blurry eyed as her partner's entire countenance shifts and softens before her. Daryl sort of melts into his relief.

Live they will, bravely, with resilience and with eyes fixed forward, steady. Maybe, even, they will manage happiness; today is such a day. Though they do not speak they do not take this news lightly in stride. It is everything. Finding Simon, making this discovery, these are why they continue to fight.  _Good is still possible_. Held tenderly over this triumph, their entwined hands grip and tighten, though in truth, they two never let go of one another, even when apart, even when in bouts of terrible despair. They forged themselves together so many months back in the crucible of trials and the holocaust of their pasts, so well they never need doubt the bond. They burned a house and melded themselves as one.

Together and still, their tried and tested hands witness their private redemption, cradling the slight curve in her waistline. This quiet, tearful solemn moment of grace is neither a binding together nor a reward, and they feel it soberly as such. Two pairs of blue eyes wet and blink and crease in all consuming delight and uncounted-on joy. A moment longer and tears are sniffed back and blinked away. Hands squeeze, lips kiss, and eyes look forward. Onward together: There is still good in the world. Their child will be but one.


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! [So boy, was that a frustrating midseason finale! I'm sorry for her fans out there, but com'on now, Jessie and her kids are killing me, ugggh. (Sorry, beyond her nutzo kids I totally resent the Rick-Jessie pairing.) So it's December, and so begins our watch till February, seems like it was just October.] Thanks so much to everyone for all their super kind comments on the last chapters, and for staying with me both through the uncertainty of Beth and Daryl's journey and through the time lapses in posts. So while the last mini chapter may have served as an ending, it in fact was not an ending, and the story moves forward with this little chapter. Happy holidays y'all!

"Daryl," Simon prompts, "you're up. Best song."

Pushing forward on the sun cracked pavement Daryl contributes nothing, neither does he appear to be especially thinking on it. Mutely he walks on, staying in pace with Simon who's beside him, and Beth who's beyond Simon. "Mm, mm," Beth interjects. "There's no way. Too broad."

"Uh, best album then?" Simon reconsiders.

It doesn't matter, what they choose. It's not a zeitgeist they're creating; talking keeps the chill from biting too deeply. Having to work their memories keeps the endless walk from being too long, too monotonous. Prompted to think about music and books and the old world gives them leave to not dwell too long on the dire circumstances they can't pull themselves from. Talking gives them leave to think of life as something other than a thing that ends. Silence lasts only so long, sooner or later it becomes oppressive and conversation finds its way back in. Through the cracks of heartache and exhaustion it sneaks, through the absences of destinations and certainty, and through the voids left by the terrible unchanging awfulness of the world as it is, conversation inserts itself. Perhaps there is no place any longer for idle conversation, but still it happens upon them, traveling with them as they go, bolstering them some, meaninglessly occupying them mostly. Ever there is work to be done and ever there are thoughts to persistently hold onto, but still amidst this they find themselves in need of occupation, of a lighter sort, and thus conversation enters in.

The last town they came to was in ashes – burned by nature, by plan, or by incident no one bothered to discern. There was no food to scavenge, no firepower, no cars, no small game. They moved through without stopping. That disappointment behind them, it's been three nights since last they slept in shelter, and all supplies are running low. They are weary but they press on, trusting they will come to something soon, that the tide will change. Cold as they are, hungry and tired, for the moment no walkers flank them, and no humans threaten; the moment as it stands affords each forward step they take the possibility of relief at the other end. They may find shelter, they may find a running vehicle, they may find food, an arsenal, people. Possibility inhabits the spaces not too consumed by horror, if they can manage to see it as so. Trying not to be drug too far down by the past, and by what darkness surely lies in wait, they give themselves leave to travel with some levity.

"Like—" her browned face creases some as she lends her consideration "—the best thing to wake up to," Beth offers, perhaps a little wistfully. "Or when you're feeling sad but can't say why."

"I'm not sure that exists anymore," Simon counters dryly. "Doesn't even seem like music does…"

"It does," Daryl interjects with a heavy rasp and an understated nod. Two pairs of younger eyes turn to him, but the rugged road-worn archer only readjusts his crossbow strap and treads on, unaware there's a young teenager learning from him, and a girl, only slightly older, left behind smiling at the back of him.

"Wull," Simon takes up the conversation again, "anyway, name something Daryl; it's still you. Music, go."

His lanky hair falls in dark shadows about his face. "Don't know."

"Something," Simon presses amiably. "Name somethin' you like, anything."

Daryl's heavy brow raises and he glances at both his companions in consideration. After a pause he musters up, "Walls."

Simon snorts lightly at the non sequitur, then nods soberly, "Fair e'nough."

"An' the group."

Simon looks, "Her an' me? Is that a 'group'?"

"Y'all," he affirms with a mumble, "an' th' others."

"Walls and people," the boy repeats. Simon sort of grins. "You're not really scary are you?"

In hardened incredulity Daryl's brow spikes, "'m I s'posed t' be?"

"Guess you haven't had a lot of face time with a mirror lately." Beth would have snickered at this remark of Simon's, only she suspects however haggard Daryl's appearance may be, hers must be significantly more downtrodden. Daryl's always worn disheveled well, but she by now must be hollow of face, bruised and cut, shadowy and thin. "Or—" Simon tacks on "—heard the way you grumble. Or seen the way you handle y'rself."

His expression crossed, Daryl grunts and shakes his head. "Along th' way, guess the tiara fell off."

Simon laughs. She smiles. Daryl may buck and growl, Beth knows; he can be fierce feral and violent when occasion calls, and is always agile and able in the midst of action, but looking at him, she knows she does not see what others must. When Beth looks his way, it's the quiet expressiveness of his eyes she sees, the glint of his few escaping smiles. If he's intimidating to others, the rashness of his backwoods bravado, the broadness of his capable shoulders, and the swell of his arms from active overuse, only cut a figure to her that feels like home. The brown hue of his skin and the boyishness of his middle-aged face behind the mask of beard and dirt and hair and sweat endear him to her. Where others look to find hardness she knows it to be strength; where others project callousness she knows his heart's resilience. Simon's jest points to the duplicity that's always been his: Daryl Dixon — for as long as she's known him — has been volatile, on edge and doggedly loyal. His gruffness never precludes his deeply rooted humanity.

She loves him, that stride, that roughness, those wings and his voice. Beth walks, still smiling vaguely at his offhand humor. Things can be all right again; they can make it that way, as long as Daryl's still around.

"Beth," Simon prompts, "you now, name a favorite."

Her hand brushes the small swell of her belly. "Walls sound good." Her voice is pleasant if distant, and never as they travel on through the orange light of the lowering sun does she realize how close her response strikes at Daryl as they walk.

They need walls; of course they do. This world as it stands necessitates walls, always will. But never since Lori and her expectancy had they so badly been in need of them.  _Lori…_  Nearly six months she'd gone without walls, marking the length of her time out in the wild on the road, without stability, without certainty. But they had had cars then, through Lori's whole pregnancy. Though they had been on the run, and out on the road, they had had cars and they had had numbers. With Lori it hadn't been up to her to fight for their survival — she had been free to doze in the passenger seat when she needed to, free to allow the others around her to take up her slack. Beth, it seems, will have no such luxury. With no walls, no cars, few weapons and little to go on for numbers, she will have to push on — stay on her feet, battle through it. Hers will not be an easy path, and certainly no one had thought that of Lori's at the time. Easy it had not been, and in the end she had not survived.

Simon is something, he is capable and not nothing, but still he is young, and he is small; he does not make up for the protection of a group. Daryl feels the weight of responsibility fixed solidly on himself. Beth is resilient stalwart and battle tested, Simon resourceful, sure-headed and unafraid, but without his realizing Daryl had taken this group on as his to see through. Indelibly Elizabeth Greene is his partner in all things, but as she takes on the mantel of carrying their child, he finds himself carrying them all. But he can't keep them alive all on his own indefinitely. He knows this. He knows also the effort of doing so nearly killed Rick Grimes. Word games and jokes and innocuous siphonings from the past won't change any of it. There's nowhere they can hunker down, no reprieve to find. They have to keep moving. After Atlanta, after their camp, after the farm and the prison, it's clear: _staying still is suicide_. Movement means survival, or at least making it another day. But where to take her? And how? And more importantly: What after? After the baby comes, what then? How to keep them alive?

Daryl reigns himself back. They have time enough for that still. The future gapes voracious and unknown before them, better to not submit too early to its pains. Her delivery is still months away, so much will change from now till then; there is the present still to think of.  _What now?_  While they're tired and exposed and winter gaining ground? A vehicle would be a start — keep them moving, keep them warm, keep them covered. But after two and a half years of scavengers siphoning it off, not much gas is out there anymore; it's not a replenishing well they're drawing from. Once more Daryl finds himself wishing he'd given a damn about renewable energy and exhaustible resources back when there was still time do something about it. What he wouldn't give for a solar powered vehicle.

"There's a town up ahead," Simon offers up. "I can feel it."

"Yeh?" snorts Daryl mildly.

"Can't not be." Daryl nods sanguinely at this line of reasoning; inevitably there'll always be another shell of a town ahead. "Bettin' we'll find food. Bettin' some ammo."

"That would be nice," Beth reflects. She tightens her sweater about her, and the autumnal wind stirs her hair, dirty and matted and inching nearer to her jaw line. She winces in the temporary chill but neither her countenance nor her expression alter; her hands dig into the cuffs of her sleeves, she smiles faintly into the fading sun, and does not falter in her pace. "Horses," Beth contributes, "I like horses."

Simon glances at her, "Of course you do. That's a thing, right? Girls and their horses?" He looks to Beth and Daryl, "You think there're still any around?"

Daryl shrugs soberly. "Any 't are 're either somebody's or gone t' ground, wild, an' on its own."

Simon considers this, thinking of all the animals left behind to fend for themselves, abandoned in a much more lethal world than the one that for centuries had domesticated them. Never had he felt such a kinship with a quadruped. A quiet settles upon him.

"Hey." Daryl whistles briskly at Beth then tugs at her belt loop to pull her back to him. "Talk t' me." Beth lets herself get caught up in his stride, but though he'd asked her to talk to him, few words are exchanged. Instead his rough hand reaches out and lightly strokes the back of her head, then settles at the nape of her neck. "Hangin' in?"

"Mm,hm."

"Y'hungry?"

"It c'n wait."

"Prob'ly shouldn't."

Beth points to Simon, "He says we're almost there."

That brassy smile she flashes him slays him. Daryl would pull her in to kiss her, but instead he swallows a grin and nods his head. "Lead th' way, girl."


	47. Chapter 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love to all the readers! Can't tell you what it means to hear from you!! xx

A pleasant trill of girlish laughter sounds through the room as Beth listens to some nothing thing Daryl's saying to her. On the floor, leaning against a wall across the space from him, her face lightens and brightens as she laughs and smiles. Miles of travel and strife fade from her face in this giggle, and in this moment, save from the dirt and the shorn hair, she could be just as she was before all of this. So pretty, and light of heart. Rarely purposefully funny, Daryl has an offbeat humor all his own, and she delights in appreciating it, and watching those thin lines at his eyes crease as he watches her smiling at him. Simon too chuckles, and their exchange of hapless nothings continues, passing the time. Everything cannot be as dark as the threat of death and terror.

"I wonder," Beth smiles sanguinely, "how many other people are laughing right now."

Daryl shrugs, his eyes quietly focused on her not the rest of the world, his rough fingers fidgeting where they hang over his raised knees. "Must be some," Simon reflects. "It can't be only us."

Installed in a bedroom of a small apartment lofted above a garage, the three of them take respite from the road and the drudgery. Wrapped snuggly in blankets and quilts, propped against what pillows and cushions they could find, they eat a meal of fruit cocktail, green beans, soda crackers, and the last of the dried fish they'd been traveling with. The town had been there waiting for them, down the road less than two hours more. The sky had still been grey when they at last reached it. Finding the small store of cans and dried goods hadn't taken them much time or much exertion, the walkers they'd crossed had been old and had moved slowly, they went down with little fight. The early acquisition of the modest stockpile left them encouraged and prompted an earlier evening than they'd anticipated. Having surveyed a small radius, they'd selected the garage apartment, took the necessary precautions, then secured themselves for the night. Fueled by the comfort and fortune of their find and four walls and blankets, they forsook prudence and tempted fate, going so far as to disregard all that would compel them to ration, and even set light a fire in an old stockpot they'd uncovered. They could have – probably should have – saved the two small cans of mixed fruit, and possibly also one of the two cans of beans. They might have made the fish last one meal longer, but when the margin of indulgence is measured by a few stale crackers, diced pears and peaches a year expired, and dry strips of smoked and salted creek trout, self-restraint sometimes presents as futile. Hunger is their travel companion, one who'll never be fully shaken off; keeping three cans in stock surely would not have made any lasting difference. They have managed hunger in the past and have no alternative but to navigate it in the days and years to come; one night's modest splurge cannot shift the course of this at all. Rationality might dictate the timely consumption of canned goods – there will come a day when shelf life dates do indeed bear warning, but truly it was not pragmatism that prompted their meager show of decadence, they wanted merely to feel free, unbound to fear and doubt. Freedom is such a very different thing with the world stripped down so bare. The unnaturally red cherry half Simon pops between his lips, to savor some time before the eventual slow deliberate chews and inevitable swallowing, is tantamount these days to a riotous insurgency. Delights of any size are difficult to come by, this night's pleasures take the shape of two pilfered 8.5 oz. cans.

Despite their heady excess they do not eat well, they haven't since their leaving camp. Camp, where there was fresh fish and game, harvested vegetation and a modestly kept larder. Meals there were close to balanced, and provided a variety of textures and flavors, with something close to fresh bread or grain cooked somewhat regularly, and even the poorer food stuffs could be enhanced by grease fat, seasoning and effort. All of that is gone. Meals now are thrown together on the fly, typically absent of any variation in color or nutritional value, nonetheless they are thankful for what they have. Some day there will be no relying on food from the old life, some day there will be none left. The best rationers could not make it last, and so many survivors out there are living for the now, scavenging and feeding for the present. And undeniably, the sweet pears, as they dissolve in these three traveler's mouths, rich and grainy and thick, do encourage momentary heedlessness.

Impetuous they three may be as they sit and eat from cans warmed over an open fire, but all caution was not cast to the wayside. The room in which they dine is scrupulously situated. The windows have been blacked out with bedding, there are three doors to get through before the one behind which they sit. Beyond their door and in the street below sound alarms are strung, and outside their western window is a hoisted fire escape that will take them to the roof but hosts no threat of anyone below gaining access. This is the safest they've been in months, and the security has gone to their heads as once a warm whiskey would have. Hazy with contentment, their minds and faces flush and burn and in that state the world softens by slight degrees and the night seems not as dark, their company not as small, their outlook not as grim, as they all do seem when on the open road.

On the floor, leaning against the bed frame, Daryl sits, craving a cigarette, and watching the other two. When it does not seem as though any one of them is in the mood for conversation, or leastways has anything in the moment novel enough to venture, Daryl reaches back into his pack and pulls out what he's been carrying with him since the surrender of the camp. The thing is wrinkled and warped, thick and tattered, yellowing and bent back and threatening to tear. His fingers scan through the stiffened pages and Daryl breaks open the book to where he'd last left off. On the road there's little opportunity for such activities, doing as he does now for Beth as well as himself, but someway he'd made it to the twenty-fifth page where he then could go no further, but in this room, with this company, he takes up James' book, and reads.

His voice is hoarse and heavy as he does, but he reads with some fluency and feeling, such that it might not have been expected from him, and his companions never miss what words had come before. "'He kept me with him all th' time, an' I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me.'" Daryl's thick finger turns the page. "'The widow she found out where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it—all but the cowhide part.'" Simon beside Beth rests his head against her shoulder and listens. Whether to the story and to Daryl Dixon's voice, or to the voices of the shadows of past nights when other words were read cannot be known, but then this book carries with it specters. Within the weathered pages and the rumble of Daryl's voice, shades of the past linger and take form. "'But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand it. I 's all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and lockin' me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome.'"

Stiff voiced Daryl continues on for some time, following the boy's story through pages and a chapter. "' _Tramp—tramp—tramp; that's the dead; tramp—tramp—tramp; they're coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me—don't! hands off—they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!_ '" Beth and Simon are captivated as they listen. The small fire spits and smokes.

There may be others in the world in similar scenes – gathered around fires in respite and in solace, united by experience and bonded by trust and familiarity – they hope sincerely that there are. But if this exact scene plays nowhere else than here, it has had renditions in the past. Other stories were read, other voices exercised in recreation and catharsis. Two such voices have been silenced, Simon Beth and Daryl pray others are still out there, finding their own means of diversion, their own routes to salvation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably doesn't need to be said, but the book is Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (Hope the reading chapters haven't seemed too on the nose.)  
> As always I love hearing from you -- what works, what doesn't; what you're excited or worried about. [I can't spill on a lot things though (mostly the 'will they or won't they' of the Rick, Maggie, & co. question) because if Beth and Daryl don't know something, we don't get to either, well, I guess I do... I truly hope I'm not frustrating or losing readers because of this. I so value you and the participation through feedback from those readers who take the time to comment! I realize this story is a little meandering and quiet, with A LOT of description of walking and food, but the back half of season 4, and S5, ep 10 "Them" have been some (though not exclusively) of my favorites eps, loving the way they explore the world and how it affects our people and how they then choose to live their lives in reaction.] You guys are the best, thank you for reading!


	48. Chapter 48

Simon lies in the dark awake as time slowly passes, slipping past him one tick of every muted unwound clock at a time. The world is more silent now. True his ears ring from gunshots, and the gnashing growls of the dead seem never to be silenced or too far off, but the sounds of the world are all but gone now, and mostly forgotten. On highways and in towns and in compartment bedrooms that had once been homes, these places echo with the silences of ghost sounds. No longer are there clocks that tick or chime, water faucets that drip or radiators that hum. No more soft sounds of radios in the background, no more traffic sounds or jet planes, neighbors or school bells. There's no time except for what one measures for himself, and no sound except for what a person makes for himself to hear. At the start, Simon used to click a pen top, when he was on his own. In and out, in and out, pressing the springed plastic top over and over, clicking, clicking, clicking. It wasn't nerves, it wasn't fear, he liked simply to know he was still of this world. Like an infant banging pots, he liked to know he could make a noise that could be heard, an assurance he could manipulate the world around him, even with the most minor of actions.

The blanket quiet was more difficult to notice in the woods. In camp there was always the constant of the river and the fall. There were the whirrings, buzzings, and tickings of insects, and the chirps and calls and knocks of birds, the rustling of breezes through leaves and the spits and crackles of campfires. The forest was never quiet and nor was their self-built camp. He aches for the voices of his comrades, their stories, their jokes, their games, and their razzings. Simon misses his true family also, still sometimes he dreams of being taken in by his mother's arms, and of his sibling's young faces, but those losses he's lived with for years; he's grown accustomed to their weight. He his not accustomed to the loss of Peter, of Michael James and John, to Tom and Rob. He feels it keenly, more so in the times when there is little else vying to be felt. The quiet fuels the sharpness of their absences. He knows he's not alone in this. He knows Beth and Daryl also feel the loss. He knows too they carry with them the losses of their own families, gone before their banding with Peter and the others. But unlike Simon, Beth and Daryl are not alone, so intrinsically coupled as they are. Simon has them, but he does not have that. In the woods there was always a brother there to jostle him, to tackle him, to pat him on the back. Hell, he'd slept side by side with them in their small huts, took cover from the rain and weather huddled close under cover and near fires. In the towering absence of the living world, he'd had brothers keeping him tethered to the world. They were his clicking pen, affirming he was real, not alone, not dead, not lost. It was contact. It was brotherhood. It was love and family. There were people to talk to, to confide in, who knew him. He is not alone in this room, but loneliness is his companion too.

Simon listens to the soft steady breaths of Beth and Daryl as they sleep above him in the room's iron-framed bed. On the floor, on cushions and in blankets, he lies, waiting for sleep to come. Not sleep even, rest. Warmly cocooned as he is, walking as long as they have, for as long as they have been, he should be dead tired and long asleep. The night had been a pleasure, comfortable and warm, with food and conversation and the rare room to breathe; he'd been caught up in the hazy languid dream of it as much as his companions had been, but now sleep is not finding him. He stares at the dark and shifting shadows on the ceiling, he pulls the covers in tighter, he shifts his weight and exhales. Slowing his breath deliberately, Simon lies there concentrating on feeling it travel in and out, trying to time it with the sounds of sleep surrounding him. And he waits. Near him his friends sleep, a man and woman together, entangled in slumbering embraces of comfort and love. They are there, and somewhere, far away maybe, are his lost brothers. He can only hope. And he is alone. Not unhappy, not unlucky, but not at ease. Sleep evades him, like so often safety and comfort do. He feels old in his fifteen years. So unlike the child he might still have been had all this never happened. In camp, always, he'd been the baby, and still is so with Daryl and Beth, despite the mere three year difference between himself and Beth, but regardless he feels old. Tired but not asleep. Lonely but not alone, not like those terrible solitary nights he spent on the run.

Beth stirs some in her sleep, twisting in the sheets. Daryl's unconscious arm drapes over her and tucks her close to him. Simon breathes. He is not ungrateful for what he has. He is not past finding good in life. He is not turning his back on their good night, on the companionship he has, or on hope for the future. Michael and James did not die for him to give up. Somewhere close a baby is growing, a new family is starting, one he can be a part of. He is not alone, he knows this. In the still darkness he fixes his mind on the soft give of his down pillow, on his full stomach, on the baby, on Daryl and on Beth, and on the future. He listens to their breathing and works to time his own with theirs, and tries to will his eyelids to grow heavy. Sleep will come when it does, and peace will come in time.

Outside the night's quiet breaks with the screeching of an owl. Simon stirs again, shifting and re-shifting, the covers don't pull in tight enough. Above him the bed creaks, and Simon holds still, frozen in place. Through the darkness from nowhere there's a touch, a hand reaching through. Beth's gentle hand finds him, softly and wordlessly.

A trained light sleeper from childhood, in bed with his love, keeping her close through the night, as he does always, Daryl'd sensed the sleepless angst mounting in the room. While warm and well-nestled Beth has slumbered peacefully against him, the kid's been still awake, restlessly battling the world by himself. No stranger to wakefulness or the hauntings of empty too-long nights (though he can sleep well enough in the day if given half the chance), Daryl nudged his sleeping girl. Beth stirred some and sighed, and when her small body stretched against his her eyes fluttered open just long enough to settle on Daryl, and his nod in Simon's direction. Still mostly asleep, at his prompting Beth reached out from the covers and found Simon in the dark.

At this touch his body caves, and his held breath escapes. " _Simon_ —" she whispers his name. Lightly she tugs at his blanket and lets that speak for itself as she turns and curls back into Daryl who's made room in their bed. It's a small gesture of a world gone but not: No one is alone. They can't be. Humbled and reprieved, Simon rises and tucks in beside her in the cocoon of this small family. Her back against his, this small contact, solid and warm, serves as proof he is not alone in any of this. Daryl's strong hand, wrapped over Beth, lifts and pats Simon. Not Merle, not Rick, but a brother, a kid brother he's never had. He is loved as Daryl and Beth have loved others. In the space between sleep and wakefulness, Simon finds peace. He knows where he is — still part of the world, and part of a group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** AN: *HUGE* thank you to fanfiction.net reader nickiesaysstuff who's review for the original version of this chapter contributed the last three paragraphs of this new update, ideas & some words, and who also acted as a great sounding board for the justification of this ending. ** [Let me know which way you feel it works better.]


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there readers! It's been sooooo loooong! Truly I didn't anticipate this long of a gap in postings. THANK YOU for your patience! I hope you all are well and had a happy and healthy holiday season with your family and friends. Well, the writing I expected to get done during winter break never happened, as I was working on too many things in real life, and now I'm back at work and back at grad school, so posts will still be slow, but I've got pieces I'm working on. So thankful for those who have hung around, and for any new readers out there! Hearing from you makes my day! (And may prompt me to get to work on the next chapter a little faster.) xoxo

"This one room won't work," Simon reasons, stepping backwards in the room, taking it in. The morning light breaks silently through the muck-stained windows in bright dusty streaks that cut the room.

"Yeh?" Daryl questions. Needlessly he pries the tip of his knife into the painted window ledge where he stands, peering through the shaded panes, surveying the street. "How much real estate you lookin' for?"

The look Simon shoots him is dry, "For a winter?" His incredulity is benign, but not undetectable. "You an' her, an' me and one room?"

The archer responds without much effort, without more than a brief distracted glance away from the street. "—Whudd'a 'bout it?" Daryl's never been one for closed quarters, but there's only just the three of them, and his mind's on exit points, and entrances, and weaknesses and blind spots. Though he's often sought solitude within a group, he's far from accustomed to any circumstance of his requiring special consideration for bunking or living arrangements. To him, he and Beth and Simon still made just a standard three. Maybe it's because for all that time it had just been him and Beth, long before it'd transitioned to him'n'Beth; maybe because under tents and huts separating out into smaller groups just happens as a matter of course, and their twosome had been a byproduct as much as it had been anything more; maybe because they hadn't even maintained a bed of their own the night before, much less a room; or maybe it was his having been without a private life – one sexual or romantic in nature – for such a stretch of time he's not adjusted to shifting other parts of his life in regard to it, meaning that unquestionably, inexorably, he is hers, and she his, intractably they are a team, but to his eyes, trained on the road and survival and a life of forced transiency, this one room presents itself as sufficiently accommodating. Three bodies can occupy a room. He's not about to watch romance redefine life on the road, on the run. His thing with Beth Greene is paramount in his eyes, but it is not a thing to disrupt the group or to make specialty demands. He can control himself. They aren't in need of a love nest.

Simon only shrugs, unwilling to press it any further. "Winters c'n be long," is all he ventures more to say.

"This is Georgia," Daryl snorts distantly, "not Michigan." He moves away from the window in brash lanky strides, "Ain't like we shuttin' in for the length of it. Weren't we all about to hold up outdoors?"

"What about the smoke?" Beth points out more pragmatically, side stepping the issue of sleeping arrangements with grace. "This place filled up last night, we can't breathe that in all winter."

Daryl scratches his jaw; his eyes scan the room with new sight. "Why're we sayin' _this_ place? _This_ is what we're sayin' is 'it'?"

Simon runs through the list again. "It's off ground level. Walls are brick."

Daryl bites at is thumb as he paces over the splitting floorboards, "Only one way in." His hooded eyes run over every detail for the countless time. "Two ways out."

"We'll run out of water," Beth warns. Last night they'd scooped water from the toilet tank, but that will only last the day. They can't last a winter emptying the tanks of every toilet in town. Though, they could, if they had to. "Mighten we find some place with a well? A chimney?"

Simon tucks back a corner of the wool blackout blanket and peers out the eastern window, "Could maybe find a well."

"We move in too deep we're cutting off our view of the road," Daryl hazards. "No way we c'n keep watch on all sides – but chances 're tha' whatever'll be movin' through here 'll be comin' off the road." His eyes move to the room's door. "Could expand to a second room," he observes flatly, "keep from feeling too shut in." His head jerks briefly upwards, "Cook on the roof if we hafta."

"Cooking's only half of it." Beth's lashes blink deftly over her large blue eyes, "What about heat. It's already cold, and only going to get worse."

Simon drops the curtain, and turns back to the room. "If we don't light fires inside, we c'n heat rocks, or bricks, 'n bring em' in. If we keep the rooms sealed well, it'll be something."

"Not much," Daryl reflects.

In this apartment the three of them find they're at a crossroads. The unremarkable nature of the building is an underwhelming end to the price their journey's exacted. It is not a fortress, it offers little in resources; it isn't much of anything. Truly it is much like hundreds of other similar buildings they've scavenged and forgotten. But the days are colder now, let alone the nights, and walking for the sake of walking serves no greater purpose, certainly not for Beth.

Realists all, it goes unspoken each of their party has been waiting for, hoping for, a reprieve, a breakthrough. Through their many miles logged they've been holding on for a community they could join, something larger than themselves; but they can't hold out forever for a deus ex machina that may never come, may no longer exist. They have got to save themselves. In such circumstances has this commonplace apartment – indistinguishable from so many others – come under consideration as the site where they'll make that stand.

It is not, though, easily done, the giving up on the hope of finding just what they need, if only they'd walk a little further, endure a little longer. Finding faults in what is less than they require is second nature; finding the courage to accept what they have and to work with it is the challenge. But still, something from their night before – of the fruit and the feasting and the heat from the modest fire – remains; a sense of comfort, a sense of homeyness and warmth still lingers from their late hours, and binds them to this spot, perhaps more so than it should. Somehow, settling on this room, in this unremarkable structure, has been rendered easier than doing the same would have been in any of the other places they've traipsed through before. Through a meager sense of connectedness, self-preservation compels their stopping when pragmatism and logic would merely force another shrug.

"Look," Simon's even voice breaks through the debility of their ambivalence, "anything'll be better than staying out on the road."

"He's right," Daryl nods. "Fire 'r no, we'll fair better with walls. No exposure to the wind or th' rain." From beneath his shadowed brow he glances in the direction of Beth. "Nowhere's gonna be perfect."

"We can make it work," Simon affirms in earnest industry, still as affable as ever.

In turn Beth inspects the small room. She suspects he's right. Since the turn they've made a life of making things work, and times have found them in much less unforgiving circumstances than this. They can surely sort out the heating, and they can troubleshoot their water supply – most any place they settled would require the same; there is potential here to make it work. And yet somehow, after the forest camp, with its huts and its hammocks and its holes in the ground even, the four-walled second floor apartment seems somewhat like settling, like a step down, if such notions are still conceivable. But even as the thought comes to her Beth knows it isn't the room that makes her feel so. As well situated as it was, with fresh water at the ready, and game and fish and greens, it's not the forest encampment itself or its prospects she mourns.

Hoping though she has been – like her companions – to find a settlement to call home, it isn't the not having found one fueling her reticence as her soft eyes detachedly and soberly assess the space. Packing in – staying put for a season, feels to her now a surrender – an abandonment of their family. On the road, on the move, they always stood the chance of making the essential discovery, of happening upon a reunion. Or a reunion happening upon them. Closing these doors behind them – despite having already allowed herself to think of the wooded camp as home - shuts out much more than the inclement weather. It is a withdrawal from the larger world, from her scattered family, a phantom ache that continually plagues and menaces. But assuredly at some juncture doors must be closed; they cannot last forever as they are. Daryl isn't wrong, in his emphasis on them over the others. It _is_ a matter of prioritizing.

Beth swallows. "All right."

"M'bye c'n find a potbelly stove 'r somethin'…" Simon reflects to himself.

"Could fix a kind o' chute on a barbecue m'ybe," Daryl muses gruffly. "Dunno what kind o' luck we'll have sourcing a stove." He hitches his tattered trousers up higher at his waist, "'We'll figure it out."

As Beth too looks, assessing what modifications are in need and what solutions possible, she is mindful not to see a home. This will not be a home to her, but a shelter from which to garner strength. Shelters can be utilized and turned away from; Beth will not lose another home, will not put her faith in any standing walls. Daryl is her home. Their growing child is her faith. This place is just a structure she will not be sorry to one day leave.


	50. Chapter 50

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! That wait wasn't too long I hope! Huge thanks to all the faithful readers, and so much love to all the reviewers! This is a sort of slow chapter, but at least I was able to expand it past its original 468 words :)

"If we get y'r stove, Sy," Daryl speaks as they move with stealth through the empty town, "we c'n cut a hole easy for the chimney." In all their raids and riflings through houses, potbellied stoves have not been the rarest item they've seen multiples of, but as always with scavenging, it's more a question of finding the things you seek when you're in need of them, then of never finding them at all.

As it stands, there's a chance there's more than one in this town that'll do for their purposes, so too there's a chance they'll find at least one of them, and manage to break it down and transport it. Also there's a chance they'll find nothing at all, and find themselves instead retrofitting a barbeque for their heating. In the end, they'll need something. The temperature in Georgian winters can drop cold, and being stationary will only aggravate its assault. The others are too young, but Daryl remembers a winter in his youth when the mercury dropped below zero. Daryl has no reason to suspect this winter will be as cold as that; they'd had some early projections from Hershel—

Daryl spits, and keeps his feet walking.

Wide blue eyes look to the street's skyline, "Y'think th' roof can support a garden?" Beth's knife keeps loose in her hand and ever at the ready as she walks. "Don't have much to start with… S'already so late…"

All eyes scan up to the flat roof of the brick structure now behind them. "Prob'ly not," Daryl grunts. "Don' want t' weigh the structure down too much. Rains're comin'." He sniffs in the cold air. "Can find another spot."

"Have we even got anythin' to plant?" Simon asks, kicking away the debris at his feet as they progress down the street, scouring the environs of their newly adopted town.

"We've—"

But Beth's answer is cut short as past their ears a bolt whistles; in mere seconds Daryl's aimed and fired the crossbow, pulling the trigger at a stumbling walker. Briskly Daryl strides forward, steps on the thing's neck with the assuredness of seasoned routine, and yanks the arrow from the broken seeping skull. Quickly he reloads and fires again, meanwhile Simon and Beth employ their knives deftly to take down another three rotters that had emerged from the shadows. When no others appear, and the last one falls dead with an ugly thud, lying still and wreaking, the street settles once again into wild silence. Daryl stoops another time to retrieve the fired and bloody bolt as Beth steps deliberately away from the dispatched carcasses to spare herself rancorous odor. With heart rates quickened, they three move on, alert and prepared.

With no need this far along to list or discuss what they seek, they search in silence, moving through shops and houses, happening upon no great stores of goods or guns, but building up slowly supplies they badly need. Table salt, rubbing alcohol, cooking grease, corn meal, batteries, toothpaste, soap, and candles. They find some canned tomatoes, plastic cups of expired applesauce, vegetable juice, a protein drink, dusty lasagna noodles, and a box of currents. They grab more, taking what they can carry in the packs they wear, making note of what they will return for, mentally cataloging it all. The town has been swept, but not entirely, they may do well here. There are still some doors that have not been breached, still some houses that may be untouched from the early days. They will go back to those, when they have emptied their bags, and have generated a plan.

In every house Simon tries the water taps. Some still have water in their tanks from when the utilities failed. He adds those to the map he's drafting. It'll help, but it won't be enough. There's more talk about rain barrels. Simon distracts himself with idle talk about aqueducts, building systems in his head that will never be built in life. They move quickly, acquainting themselves with as much of the town in one outing as they are able. Nimbly and with efficiency they clear the walkers they can, and slip past the ones they can't.

"We're never going to clear all of them," Beth declares in hushed tones. Behind them in a veterinary clinic dozens of the beasts shuffle and beat about. As the hours have passed through the day they've crossed pockets of small throngs of them – in houses, in streets, in alleyways and shops. Taking care as they have to remain discreet, the trio hasn't yet had the occasion to run, but in calculation of the numbers they've seen in the quiet, without question there'll be more should any kind of raucous upheaval assert itself to call on the dead; no doubt they'll likely fall out in droves.

With this in mind, Beth considers the endless intersections of neighborhood streets. In truth, her focus on the apartment itself had blinded her to the larger issue: How can they set up residence in a town so open to a roaming herd, and already filled with shops and homes teaming with countless walking dead? She's grown accustomed to killing the dead and moving on, to circumventing them when their numbers are too large, and running when they must; staying means retraining herself again – reconditioning instincts and approaches. She sees now – as a decaying body slams itself with a mighty thunk against the clinic's window – this apartment they're scouting for is no apartment at all, it's a wishful safe house dead square in a war zone. They cannot stay.

"Don't have to," Simon whispers in response, ducking out of sight of the brazenly seeing eyes of the undead. "We lock 'em in the places that're too overrun to clear." Out of habit Simon cinches tighter the shoulder straps to his pack. "We can reinforce the windows and the doors. Maybe cover 'em so they don't see us when we pass."

"Daryl?"

Daryl looks at each of them, then surveys the landscape of the town. He sees it weaknesses just as they do. In silence his sharp eyes scan, and look, searching for solutions. The commitment to staying put has been made, it's on them now to make it work. "Depends," he speaks cagily. A minute longer and he's scratching at his nose clarifying, "What kind of profile we want? The safer we make this place, the clearer it'll be we're here."

...

It's on their second return from going out that day that they talk any further on it. Unloading food and blankets, hot water bottles and sundry, setting them into storage by need and by use, their conversation returns to armament. "On the council," Daryl speaks gruffly, like it isn't so easy to speak of these names and times with just casual regard, "'Chonne described Rick's hometown." He glances at Beth for context — "That time she and Rick n' Carl went on a run for artillery—" He makes no mention of the need for the run having been the Governor, the anticipated attack from Woodbury. He does not speak those words to her, they serve no purpose. "Whole town was fortified," he continues on. "Rigged, and trip lined. There were barriers, railings, wires, triggered blades and firearms. Walker traps and set bait. Jus' one guy did it all. Was survivin' on his own."

"Your group got through?" Simon asks, speaking partly from interest, and partly to test the impregnability of such a design.

"Not easily. And Rick knew 'im." Having offered his evidence Rick's breach might have been less likely had the acquaintance not existed, Daryl tests the sturdiness of the wardrobe shelf he'd just stacked high with food and supplies. When he's assured it will hold, he stands back then wipes at his eye. "—Morgan," he finishes the thought. "First living person he come upon after passin' the turning wired up in a hospit'l bed."

"Carl said that man was crazy," Beth's soft stable voice interjects.

Without a glance in her direction, feeling no rush toward a quick response, Daryl scratches his beard with steady deliberation. "Ain't all of us seen our share of crazy?" He does not betray those in his acquaintance by constructing a list of names, but surely on it, and high up, would be Rick. Maybe himself too, for hadn't he once strung rotting ears about his neck and had visions of a person never there? Merle had aligned himself with a psychopath. Carol had denied ever having been a mother. When first she'd joined them Michonne had been so steely and shut off to the world she hardly seemed human. Beth had gone cationic then tried to end herself. Morgan might have been crazy, but by Rick's account, no more so than the world had made him. And from Michonne's telling of it, that strain of crazy had served him well: he was still living, as one by one the lone men in the world continuously fall. "We could do the same here," his voice rumbles and scratches. "We could entrench and fortify."

Simon looks at him, waiting, soberly expectant, "' _But_ '?"

"It'll tell others we're here," Beth answers for him. Her words are dry and sparse in feeling. "Make it look like we've got something worth taking." She does not say more, and in her response her face never registers specific pain or wounds, but experience and loss both shadow and shape her understanding; the past will not allow itself to not be learned from. Survival is dependent upon it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hearing form you makes my day!


	51. Chapter 51

While the hammers bang, Beth regrips the crossbow, stretching her fingers wide about the grip, her long index finger dancing over the trigger. Stoically she stands guard against the noise of Simon's and Daryl's work, impervious to all but their task, the entrenchment they are staking. The stairwell to their building is being fitted with trip wires, an alarm system, and weight falls in two of the stairs. Outside clamber three walkers – no doubt drawn to the noise – for the moment still docile enough to let be. Simon's advocating for an eventual covered pit at the front door, one with blades or a deep hole to stymie unwanted foot traffic, but if they act on it at all it will have to wait until they're further established and better moved in. There is still considerable gear and supplies to be brought up, and the stairs themselves now will create enough of a challenge to this until the bulk of the stockpiling is completed.

The plan is to fortify their building and the town under the cover of vacancy. Their's will not be the overt defenses of Morgan, but like the woods before this town, they will strategize the landscape of the town of Pierce to their defense and advantage. Three days now they've been executing their measures, taking care not to announce their residency in any step they take. Covertness is the path they've elected.

Out front they've pushed three cars into the road outside their door; ostensibly, to the casual eye, it's just another crash, but the seeming collision provides a sort of barricade for them. It'll slow a stampede if one comes at them. Beyond that they've taken other measures, covert alarm riggings in the road that pass as random fodder from a town once brought down by chaos.

Second to securing their own building, they're establishing safe houses throughout the town. Punctuating different paths through town, houses, ones with strong vantage points of the road and of the town and its outskirts, have been cleared. These houses, indistinguishable by their exteriors, have reinforced bolts, heavy furniture at the ready to barricade doors, shadowbox peepholes installed, impaling weapons stashed, and small stores of food and water. Simon's working on a signal system should any one of them ever get cornered and trapped in one of them. They may never need any of it, but preparing for all eventualities runs deep in their blood, a training that cannot be unlearned.

In making their rounds they've come upon the remaining wreckage of gruesome scenes. Suicides, slaughterings, families overrun, living bodies destroyed in terrible ways. And worse. Despite so much in the world pushing them to be, none among these three have hardened to the cost of such sights. They see the carnage, neither immune nor impervious to the ugliness, to the terror, and they soldier on. Still so fresh are their most recent losses, compounding the ones they've carried longer, not one of them can afford the empathy. The dead, no matter how innocent, no matter how alive and human they once were, are dead: not of them, not theirs. Mutely they pass through treacherous tableaus, killing what needs killing, passing by what is already gone. " _Only the living can be saved,_ " Carol once had said.

Around town walkers are being killed in ones and threes and fives. In houses, on the streets, in shops, the general count is being culled. Before too much longer they plan to clear the vet clinic, hoping there may still be some meds inside. Their stock of food grows slowly, with some good finds among it, but still it will not be enough for the three of them for too long. They will need to continue to scavenge. It's clear which houses fell early: some pantries are virtually untouched. Some fridges are time capsules of collapsed and disintegrated mold, long past growing. They've found still-sealed mustard jars and jams. They've found flour, honey, oils, seasonings, rice, beans, canned veggies and bottled beverages. They've uncovered some over-the-counter painkillers, some stomach tonics, blood pressure meds, nasal sprays and allergy medicines. Added to this is a total of seven bottles of children's chewable vitamins, three handguns, a carton of rounds, and a cache of fireworks.

Beth is advocating for and working on creating a separate store of food and supplies. Should they get raided, should they get robbed, or even accidentally burn down their apartment in the heating of it, she does not want them left with nothing. Hedging their bets is the order of the hour, and with two cars at the ready for flight or desertion in either direction, each with siphoned gas stored on hand, taking up residency – transitional though they all may deem it – is proving doable.

Simon lifts his head from his work and exhales heavily through a lazy smile his lips form. Sweat mats his floppy white-blonde hair to his brow and he pushes it back with a tanned and dirty forearm still lean from youth. "Phew," he chuckles. "Gettin' light headed." After another three powerful and direct blows with his hammer, Daryl too straightens his body, stretches his back and leans against the blood-marred wall. "Whudd'ya think?" Simon asks, surveying their work.

Daryl nods. " _Yhep_ ," his low voice rumbles. Wordless, his right arm reaches toward Beth and relieves her of the bow she wasn't having trouble keeping raised.

She lets him take it, the way he generally keeps her from carrying loads when he at all can help it. She doesn't thank him, she's not certain he's aware he does it. "What's next?" she prompts.

Simon glances up from the calluses he's rubbing, peeking through his long lanks of fallen hair, "Anything to move forward with for the garden?"

Beth's head shakes. "There's nothing much." She's been looking for viable transplants, for planting packets, for bulk seed. "Dandelion greens, that's about all I'h've seen." The three survivors do their best not to allow this to bankrupt their progress too much. "I found a bag of birdseed," Beth continues. "If they germinate, we may get some pumpkins and sunflowers. In the spring maybe millet, or rapeseed or sorghum, but the yield will be small; and it's unlikely at best." Her dimples deepen as she continues in earnest, "We'll need to spend these next months cultivating a store for planting."

Outside the walkers still mill and shuffle about – not agitated, but pacing in wait. Daryl raises the crossbow. "Snares need t' be set." With a broad step he passes over the tripwires and fall steps and descends toward the exit. "Got near two hours b'fore sundown." The two others nod, and with blades, firearms, and line in tow, they circumvent the new defenses and meet him at the thick slab door.

With a nod Daryl handles the bow and kicks open the exit, firing into one walker as another stumbles back from the impact of the swinging door. Their work is swift as blades flash and swipe, sticking fiercely at their points of impact then drawing back stark and final. Five they take down in total, then make fleetly for the edge of the woods.

"How you feeling?" Simon asks Beth as he travels beside on the bloody pavement.

"Better," the small girl nods. "The exhaustion's gone; 'm feeling a little more like myself."

"Good," the boy nods. "That must be good." They follow behind the long brash strides of Daryl, who leads them into the shadows of the trees and into the rustlings of the brush, across the highway into the naturally growing world. "Will it happen here? The baby?"

Beth shakes her head and trains her eyes on the forest floor. "We won't be here that long." By her rough estimations she gathers she has twenty, maybe as many as twenty-five weeks more; a lot can happen in that time. A lot can happen in so many minutes, enough to destroy homes and to cut down loved ones. She is not counting on this place. Several paces more Beth lowers to the ground to assemble a snare along a small game trail. "We're not home yet."

Her river eyes flash to the east in immediate response to his whistle. When her eyes catch his, Daryl's glaring at the both of them, telling them in silent glowers to shut up and get to work. Her contained smile answers his condemnation and her unfazed hands work all the more quickly to complete the task.

Two squirrels and a fledgling network of snares running west to east and north to south are the products of two hours in the woods. Before them the sun is low and hazy in the sky, pulling down with it the clouds and the shadows, bringing in night over their heads. Though the light is dimming in the mauve-streaked orange-gold burning sky, the trio walks softly in leisure, feeling in each step the pride of hard work done, and stability being fortified. Simon drinks from a canteen, drawing two long, quenching drafts then passes the bottle off to Daryl. Daryl drinks, spits, then drinks again.

"Gotta get the water supply settled," Simon says. "This is all going to be for naught if we can't."

"No chance of crops until then," Beth agrees.

"We got transport," Daryl breaks in. "We'll make a run, fill up. Repeat. Two fishin' shops in town? Gotta be a river close."

It'll mean hassle, it'll mean risk, driving out to cart in water, and until they've completed at least one run successfully they won't consider the matter settled, but already the prospect of a feasible water supply has got them breathing easier. Water security, food security, consumes so much of their waking attention, crowding out all nonessential considerations and concerns. Water. Food. Walls. Weapons.

For tonight at least, all bases are covered. As natural as anything, without breaking his stride, Daryl sweeps Beth's head in to him and plants a kiss at the top of her tangled dirty head. Once more he kisses her, then releases her in quiet contentment. Beth's sweet face presses to the brawn of his arm and presses her chapped lips to his woolen bicep. Somewhere overhead a brown thrasher chirps and calls. Their feet fall softly on the wooded ground.

"I'm going on a run—" Simon starts with a hazy grin. "And I'm going to get ammo."

Beth smiles, straightens her head from Daryl and answers. "I'm going on a run and I'm looking for ammo and batteries."

"' _Getting_ ,'" Simon interjects. "Positive thinking, Beth."

"Al'right," she smiles her gentle concession, "' _Getting_.'"

"Dixon?" the boy invites when the turn isn't promptly taken up.

Daryl shifts the weight of his bow, glances at his comrade, and clears his throat. "Goin' on'a run f'r ammo, batteries, an' cigarettes."

"Soft 'c', I like it." The sun is dropping more quickly now and dusk edges in on the glowing sky as it shrinks smaller at the western horizon. Nearly back to the highway now, Simon considers his next turn… "I'm going on a run and on that run I'll get ammo, batteries, cigarettes for Daryl, and… dry goods."

"I'm—"

Daryl's raised hand shoots out and at once both Beth and Simon stop. Stillness settles as they watch and listen, attending to every quiver of the forest line, every gust of breeze, every rustling of the brush. Nothing. Daryl signals sustained silence and Simon and Beth assume formation. The woods had been peaceful. In two hours they'd only happened upon a total of half a dozen walkers, seeing no signs of larger masses. Daryl scans their darkening surroundings intently, missing nothing, but he glances back at Beth, his eyes holding her briefly in his gaze before he makes his next move.

Strong seasoned hands grip the narrow crossbow and raise it to aim. " _Come out_ ," he growls. Simon's and Beth's eyes search for threats. "You've seen us," Daryl barks grimly. "Walk away or show y'rselves." Beth raises John's pistol, hoping the posturing is all she'll need. They don't have the rounds, or the numbers for a gunfight. In her ready stance she hopes for a friend, she hopes for the gnarled gnashing decaying face of the dead. She does not want a standoff. Their couple of rounds, her knife, Daryl's bow, won't help much if it's the living, armed and dangerous, coming through the tree line. Beside her Simon's gun is raised, his magazine less than half full. As rough and road worn as they are, with weapons raised they must be making somewhat of a lethal showing, and in the flash of time that all this has taken, Beth harnesses all she has in her – as beside her the two remaining people in her life tense and flex, ready for action – to will it that a showing be all they'll be required to make. " _Com'on!_ " Daryl roars.


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for continuing to read! ENDLESS LOVE to those who take the time to review or just to comment!!! There are sooooo many other stories out there that you could be reading and I SOOOO appreciate you including this story in your reading selection. To the reader-only members out there, I want to assure you: hearing back from readers is priceless! It takes long hours, days, and sometimes weeks to craft a chapter, it seriously makes our day to get some kind of feedback – maybe a line, a moment, something that stood out (something that worked, something that didn't), or even just that you're excited about or responding to the story in some way - not just big plot points but small things as well. Honestly though, I am VERY grateful to be being read by each and every one of you at all; I am well aware there is a wealth of stellar stories out there to choose from.  
> Okay, now (if I haven't already lost you) back to that cliff hanger…!  
> [*The original version of this encounter was written and placed before Simon's resurfacing.]

The three figures of Simon Beth and Daryl strain and tense in the fading light, geared up and poised to act. Somewhere there's rustling, then slowly, from the shadows of the forest emerge the shape of human figures. One thick and short, another lean and tanned, a third solidly built and eagle eyed. "Don't shoot!" It's a woman's voice. There are two women approaching, and a man. They wear and carry guns, but they are not aiming them. Though Simon, and perhaps too Beth, would want to take this as a sign to lower their own weapons, neither does.

" _Why're you followin' us_?" The man, tall and sharp looking, in his forties and graying, does not scare in the face of Daryl's snarls and the two handguns trained on him and his companions. "Ya'gonna t _a_ lk?" the archer hurls at them. Daryl's narrowed eyes jump from one adversary to another, reading the scene, keeping tabs on every movement, every shift. In the mounting tension his trigger strains to be pulled.

"We're not here to hurt you." The shorter woman, a rifle slung across her shoulder, is breathing hard, watching them with steady eyes and talking to them like a pack ready to charge.

"What do you want?" Beth asks, her voice strong and unflinching.

Daryl twitches at the sound of it. She can take care of herself, but he'd prefer she just blend into the background. He knows and relies upon her strength, but he can't take her becoming a target. If heat is coming, he'll take the brunt of it. "T _a_ lk assholes."

" _Hey_ —" the man speaks, reigning in the encounter before it escalates. "We could _help_ each other."

Quickly Daryl reads the woods around them. Turning back, his lined expression lifts and arcs in his scorning interrogation, "How many of you are there?" Once more his crossbow scans their perimeter in the dimming light.

"Three," the man says stately. "It's just us." He's maybe late-fifties; Daryl guesses he's capable, but better with his head than with his hands. A talker. "Three," he submits again, "like you."

Unpersuaded, the soles of Daryl's feet wait to launch him into action. "We got three weapons trained on you – any reason you're still talkin'?" The light is nearly gone, dropping the temperature with it. The tension not abating, the brisk night air seems to sharpen the stakes, intensifying all edges. Daryl's fingers itch on his trigger. His active eyes catch on the silent one, the taller leaner woman. Her quiet is unsettling. As is her stillness, and that hollow look in her eyes.

"Maybe you don't scare us." It was the stouter one who said this, unreasonably even-keeled for the context.

Daryl spits, still holding the bow high and level. "You're crazy if you're not scared. Scared's what makes y'sane."

"You know better than that," the man rebuts evenly. "Anyone still scared of the dead can't take them down – they're weak, and they do not survive. Anyone too afraid to take a chance on the living–" and here he makes a point to look at Beth, to look at Simon "–won't last long."

Daryl shifts his feet where he stands, keeping his crossbow trained on the three of them. "M'bye you haven't run across th' sorts _o_ ut there."

"No," the man counters; "I assure you, we've had our run-ins."

Daryl's voice constricts and hardens, Beth's grip on her Glock flexes, "An' still you follow us?"

"We saw a kid," the woman says. Her voice is deep and raspy, and oddly transparent. "We saw a girl. We saw a man with no traces of psychopathic behavior."

"We took a chance," the man speaks neutrally, staring down the crossbow. "We saw a functioning group and we took a chance."

His strained arms never faltering, Daryl keeps the bow poised, lethal as ever. His narrowed eyes twitch and watch, taking everything in. "How long you been out here?"

"Some time," the man answers. "We've lost some places."

" _What d'ya want_?"

"Daryl—" Beth breaks in. He bristles some at her speaking again, but he does not turn back to her "—ask the questions."

With a readjustment of the bow, and a stiffly gruff voice, Daryl speaks the words. "How many walkers you killed?"

"'Walkers'?" the woman repeats. "You mean the dead. A lot."

"Too many to count," confirms the man.

Daryl remains stony and unflinching. "How many people?" Simon and Beth wait. Three fingers hover over triggers in the brief interim before an answer.

"All together between us?" The man studies his inquisitors; his mannerisms are unhurried, his comportment seemingly unstudied. The assuredness with which he conducts himself is difficult to make heads or tails of. It is disconcerting; all of them are. _Do they conduct themselves this way because they have nothing to hide, or have they already bested them and need only wait for the strategy to play out?_ Daryl Simon and Beth wait for the answer. "Seven."

"Eight." The first word spoken by the thin, dark woman, grave and stoic, draws attention. That _eight_ is heavy, and final.

Slowly Daryl's lips curl; he jerks his head at them in the asking of the final question: "Why?" Beth and Simon ground their feet, as though the coming answer could in someway bear more threat to them than the physical people they've held in their sights these past minutes.

"Like we said," the shorter woman speaks. "We haven't encountered the best sorts."

" _Such as?_ " Daryl gruffly presses.

The man looks them each in the eye. "If you're this afraid of us, I gather you can imagine." The thinner woman, the quiet one with amber skin, Daryl thinks he sees her flinch.

"Is this stalemate going to end?" the stouter woman asks brusquely. "You've got the draw on us, we've answered your questions; we aren't here to hurt you."

"What do you want?" Simon can't hold back from asking again.

Simon's voice sounds so young amidst all these adults. The stout woman looks to him. "We could use some help," she answers. "Or just some conversation."

The man raises his hands at his sides, his eyes wide, and open, signaling no ulterior motives. Slowly he unholsters his pistol, flips deftly the handle in their direction, and with eye contact holding, offers the firearm up to any one of them who wants to take it off him. "This isn't a trap." He waits for some action. "Don't tell us you haven't been waiting for this." Still he waits, they all wait. Not one among them moves.

"Three's not enough," the shorter woman says in her hoarse baritone; "not when it doesn't have to be. You know it."

Beth Greene loosens her grip on the gun she's been brandishing. "Daryl—" she speaks softly.

Daryl Dixon grimaces. He wants to trust. He wants to lower his weapon. He used to be able to do this. _How many people had he been able to bring into the prison?_ He wants to believe. Behind him he hears what he thinks is a gun being lowered, and tucked away. "Give it here," Simon says, and the boy steps forward with hand outstretched to accept the offered pistol.

In this moment Daryl recalls the day when the boys took a chance on he and Beth, after he'd beat the shit out of Peter no less. He thinks of the families and the people he and Glenn and Rick brought in from the road, and those they brought in from Woodbury. He thinks about Andrea losing her life trying to give people chances, he thinks about Hershel and he thinks about his brother. He thinks about Dale, and the fight he'd fought on Randall's behalf. He thinks about Shane and the price he paid for not trusting, and the price his actions exacted from the group. He thinks about the governor, and he thinks about Rick, and Carol, and Glenn, and Lori, and the Greenes, giving him a chance, not pushing him away. The past two years converge on him, informing his aggressive exhale. Then the bow drops to his side, and Daryl Dixon strides forward past Simon, and with weathered hand extended, accepts the surrendered firearm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~ Jody xx


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With love and appreciation. ~ Jody Barsch xx  
> [Apologies for the post, quick delete, and repost. I realized I needed to rework the layout of the apartment, and to catch some needed edits I'd missed.]

Steely blue eyes look the man square on, locking onto him; then the archer takes a single step backwards, stashing the gun in his back waistband. "Daryl," he mutters huskily.

The man nods. "Walter."

The first woman unshoulders her shotgun and yields the handgun holstered at her side. "Bonnie." She is short and wide hipped; her straight black hair is shorn close to her head except for a three inch strip of hair running lengthwise from her brow to the nape of her neck. The forearm handing over the weapons to Simon is tattooed and muscled, and the glint in her eyes conveys she is not a person easily duped or mislead.

The third woman, the quiet one, tall, lean, dark – she might be beautiful if she weren't so hollow, so shadowy and withdrawn – she makes no move to relinquish her weapons. Her gaze is ever watchful, but her almond eyes never settle on any one of them for longer than a moment, never long enough to be caught looking. Daryl watches her, quietly taking her in, but he does not hazard to step closer. He recognizes a battered thing when he sees one.

"Go ahead," Bonnie nods.

Beth too looks on, with large, clear, watchful eyes. Her face gathers in earnest dimples and she nods, like she might a startled horse. "I's al'right." Her pretty drawl is bright and out of place in the growing darkness. Stepping forward cautiously, Beth offers an encouraging smile. Her thin hand, ruddy from the cold, patient and undemanding, extends to the woman.

The woman studies Beth, studies Daryl and Simon. She must have agreed to this – before they stepped forward from the cover of the woods she must have agreed with trusting them, with making this offer of concession. Still, it is clear she does not wish to be parted from her gun. Daryl would bristle at that and lose his trust, if he did not recognize something deeply familiar in her.

When the revolver and semi-automatic pistol she carries are handed over, Beth palms one and tucks the other in her belt. "I'm Beth,' she says, risking a gentle smile.

The woman breathes, and exhales. Her dark eyes gauge and measure. "Hadeel."

There's a rustling sound to the east and in an instant Daryl's bow is up and raised and firing into the darkness. With a splattering squish the walker fifteen yards off stops short, crumples and falls. Nimbly Daryl reloads and nocks before his muscles once again relax.

"Simon," the teenager belatedly gives his name with the deadpan boyish delivery that forces Michael into Beth's mind.

Still a bit too tense for laughter, the others nod, mostly keeping their eyes on the eldest and grimmest of the three. Had they been watching for long in the woods, they no doubt would have seen demonstrations of the trio's abilities, but having done so, still they seem satisfied, if not impressed by this show of prowess.

"You got a camp?" Simon asks.

"No," the man called Walter answers.

"Considering you all're setting snares, we figured you might." The one called Bonnie doesn't seem to be asking anything in this, she speaks in facts. Beth, whose fingers are starting to tremble in the cold, and senses the onset of chattering teeth, steps in to make the invitation. "We been here three days." With a glance at Daryl, she nods her head toward town. "Com'on."

When Beth moves the other five shift slowly into motion to follow. The sun long since gone, the streets are black as they cross the highway and enter town. Daryl, just behind Beth in unsheathing her knife, removes his too, and treads carefully through the shadows. "We gonna regret leavin' ya'll y'r blades?" His whisper is rough, and low.

"I assure you—" Walters answers "—we know who the enemy is."

Beth swallows, and moves forward. Traversing in stealth formation, the six together take out thirteen walkers between the woods and their front door. The newcomers are efficient and tested. In short time the six make it to the brick building, at which point Daryl stops. "Stairs're rigged. One of you follow one of us." He shifts the rubble door blocks out of the way, then shifts himself for Beth to enter first. "You got this?" Sheathing her knife, Beth mounts the flight with ease; in no time she's at the landing, lighting a candle to light the way for the others. Hadeel follows, then Simon, then Walter, stepping over wires, alarms, cut out steps and concealed blades.

Outside, Bonnie and Daryl take down another two walkers – Bonnie crossing out into the street to meet her target in its path. Making her return she steps onto the neck of Daryl's kill, tugs, and retrieves his fired bolt. "Better not t' have them piling up outside the door," she remarks, returning the bloody arrow to him. "Smoking gun, or what have you." Daryl grunts a sort of accordant nod. When he moves toward the door Bonnie moves in first. "I got it," she nods. "You'll be wanting to be the one to lock up."

Daryl's instinct is to grunt, but he pushes himself to something more: no longer is it just the three of them, at ease with each other in silence. This is the very moment of regrouping. This person, these three, they could be the difference between life and death for him, for Simon, for Beth. These newcomers could one day be family. Maybe. They took a chance to reach out. Daryl's fixed jaw opens some, "Th'nks." He again nods at her but she's already halfway up the stairs. With a final scan of the street beyond, Daryl steps inside and secures the solid door behind him. Two deadbolts and two double bolts, one into the floor, one into the door frame above. Once he finishes wrapping the 3/8 inch chain link around the door handle and the iron banister he slings the bow across his back and climbs to meet the others in the bedroom apartment.

In the dim Daryl passes through the still-open door to the apartment's entrance. He shuts it behind him and bolts and double bolts the door. The day before they'd cleaned out the hardware store's inventory of security blocks, installing them on the outer door, the apartment door, in the inner bedroom, and in the safe houses until they ran out. It'd taken time without a power drill, but he's satisfied they'll hold if tested. Later he'll push the credenza in front of the door, but this early in the night they'll still have reasons for reopening it. The front room is dark and unoccupied, through it he joins the others in the bedroom.

Lit by two candles and a battery lantern, precisely angled in the mirrors Beth had collected and arranged about the room to best amplify the light, the modest room is bright enough to see in. The light though does nothing to warm the cold, and the room that days earlier Daryl had thought might alone see them three through the stretch of the winter, now filled with six people measures considerably smaller.

"You c'n drop those," Daryl nods at their packs. One by one the heavy packs are unshouldered and shrugged off, dropping densely to the floor. Shoulders role and backs arch and stretch from the relief of the reprieve.

"Said we needed another room," Simon blithely observes. The addition of these three affirms the expanse of the small apartment will now be in full use – there's no hope of self-containment to one single compartment, and little purpose in trying. The defenses they've mounted will either be enough of they won't; one extra door cannot be relied upon to make the final difference.

Because no one yet has sat no one else in the room moves to sit or shift. They all six stand, separately recalling the old practice of building acquaintances.

"We've got food," Walter says, breaking the awkward silence. Simon, already furtively buoyant over the development of events, seems to gleam some at this. Aside from the willing surrender of weapons, and intervening in a moment of jeopardy, sharing food is the quickest path to alliance building. The sharp-eyed man kneels over his pack and proceeds to rummage through it, talking as he produces what he's after. "Canned – dry – packaged," he accounts one by one. Straightening some, he looks the shared bounty over, "Won't last, but we're in the black for the moment."

"We got lucky, a couple runs in a row." Unzipping her pack Bonnie produces a still respectably heaping bag of rice, followed by a glass jar of pasta sauce carefully wrapped in a wool blanket. "Wasn't sure it would make it," she observes. Now out come two cans of green beans, then handfuls of serving-size packages of oyster crackers. "Take your pick," she leans back on her heals, "there's plenty more for now."

Beth smiles, a bit primly, then in a beat gets to work. "We c'n sauté the beans with the meat, boil the rice – the remainder will be good in the morning…" Running their combined inventory through her head, Beth itemizes and plans "…Save the sauce for t'morrow, use some of the polenta; m'ybe we'll have a rabbit 'r something in the traps t' fry… Crumble the crackers for a crust an' fry the canned squash…"

The three new pairs of eyes look at her, amazed. "Was sure we'd outlived all the gourmets," Walter commends oddly, having no other response to give.

"Supply dictates the diet," Simon intercedes and clarifies. "Ingenuity only goes so far; y'need a larder t' back it up."

Wheeling out some from the wall a small stainless steel chef cart they'd moved in the day before, Daryl drops the two stiffened squirrels down, grunting. "Had our fair share 'f nuthin'."

Bonnie nods, "Isn't that the truth." Her expression shadows momentarily, "…Never knew what hunger was…"

Daryl removes his knife, still stained from the kills in the street, and holds it over a lit candle, first one side, then the other, until he's satisfied it's clean enough for food, then he's cutting into squirrels, deftly skinning them with great tugs of seasoned skill.

Noting their looks of inquiry as they peek about, Simon takes it up to acclimate the others. "We've been using mostly this one room. Saves on light, helps with heat; there's the extra door between us an' them." He watches Daryl carve, "Prob'ly should move this part into the outer room."

"What do you use to cook?"

"First night built a fire in a galvanized bucket. Yesterday we brought in a kettle grill. Got a little charcoal, an' we c'n use wood after that." Simon pulls the lighter from his back pocket, and sparks it needlessly. "At the moment, grill's in the bathroom – close 'nough to help heat the room some, removed to try 'n keep this room from fillin' with smoke. Should start feeling it soon." While Beth had waited with a light at the top of the landing for the others to mount the stairs, he'd gone along and lit the grill, mounding the coals in a bottomless coffee canister to help them ignite faster. "Right now th' flue we attached shoots through the sealed window, triple filtered to cut th' smell of smoke on the street – as much as we're able. It works; well 'nough. But with you all here," Simon looks around, "we'll prob'ly move it out there." The towheaded teen nods at the outer room. "We c'n cut out the hole in the wall like we talked about."

"Make the heating trickier," grunts Daryl. In one conversation they've more than doubled their living space.

Walter processes all this, duly impressed. "You all been here how long?"

"This's th' end of our third day." Cracking his neck, first left ways then right ways, almost as if John were in the room with them, Simon keeps up with the role of spokesperson he seems to have taken on as both Beth and Daryl work briskly at prepping the meal.

"It's this room and the outer room?" Bonnie asks, piecing the apartment's full floor plan together in her head.

"Uh… yeah. Living room, 'r whatever, with th' open galley kitchen." He glances at Daryl, who's dropping entrails into a can, then at the room's outer door. "Wasn't worth our expanding into the extra space." He glances back over his shoulder at his inductees, "Like he said, trickier to heat, and one less door between us an' the outside."

Bonnie tugs at her earlobe, a habit she's not quite conscious of. "What are you doing for water?"

"Yeah," Simon admittedly nods, moving into the attached room to check the coals, "haven't got that mastered yet."

Beth looks up from the rice she's carefully rationing. "We're carrying it in, little by little. Some bottled, most from toilet tanks. We're working on a plan more viable." When she reaches for the first can of beans Walter already has it, prying it open with his knife, which he too first swiped in and out of the candle's flame. "Thanks." She smiles, not yet warmly, but not unkindly.

Walter shrugs and carves harder into the aluminum. "If we're together –" he punctuates with a nod, indicating he means a group, a unit "– there's no need for thanks. Groups work together: Help each other, survive together." From the cart where he carves the meat, Daryl looks over his shoulder at him, his expression unreadable. Stoically he watches… It's not overt distrust, but earned his trust they have not. Not yet.

Faint smoke filters in from behind the closed bathroom door, signaling Simon's successful lighting of the grill. In want of some activity Bonnie moves in to help where she can, providing her own light as she goes. Still silent, Daryl scoops up the cubed meat and carries it cradled in his hands to Beth's pan where he dumps it in. Standing there behind her, methodically wiping his bloody hands on his red rag, Daryl looks Walter over. "How long you been on the road?" The sound of his rough and tempered voice warms Beth, even in the cold of the room. When Daryl speaks she feels him close; hearing his voice, no matter the words, there's a connection there – something living and enduring, that strengthens and fortifies her. And nearly always leaves her flushed.

Walter uses the tip of his knife to pop open the sawed lid from the second can of beans. "We lost a place, maybe a month back."

Both Beth and Daryl look. "'Lost', t' people? Those sorts you mentioned?" Daryl's gnarled voice treads with reticence. Without meaning to, both Beth's and Daryl's glances venture towards the quiet one, the ghost woman. Hadeel.

"No." The man shakes his head, sharing nothing more.

"Walkers?" Daryl questions.

Walter snorts. "Can't quite get used to that one."

Daryl's lip sort of curls into an unintentional contest, "Whudda'ya call 'em?"

"'The dead', mostly. We've heard 'biters', 'corpses'. One man we knew called them 'rotters', another 'ghosts.'"

"Ain't ghosts," Daryl scoffs darkly.

"No," the man agrees. "They are not."

Ghosts they know. Ghosts they all know. Not as lethal as the dead, but more formidable to be rid of. A strike to the skull, and a biting clawing creature's brought down; the hauntings of the past have no such undoing. Ghosts are the traces of the life once lived with people now gone. Broken pieces of conversations, smiles, touches, shared triumphs and losses. Names are ghosts now, as are voices. The things a person could not have done any differently – the fallings short of intervening, of rescue. All these things linger, follow, shadow. Those still breathing exist alive amongst it; alive amidst the dead risen, and the fallen living.

If anybody had cared to, this might have been the moment in which they spoke together of losses – family that's been killed, friends forever gone – but no one does. Those stories, shared too openly, shared too often, cease to bear the weight they should, and leave the tellers none the better for the telling. This far in, loss is a given. There are easier, more precise, less invasive means for building foundations and familiarity. A loss of a person never known cannot be fittingly felt, and traipsing out the deaths of others, without context, without knowing purpose, is just not done. Memories, now past invaluable, needs be protected against bankruptcy and banality.

They talk instead of food. Of the weather. Of the road and the condition of their boots and of their coats. They talk about their weapons. The distinct scent of the grill infuses the air as Walter mends the strappings on his pack and Daryl wipes clean the metal prepping surface. He dumps the animal remains in a pail he disposes of in the outer hall while Beth rations oil into the skillet. She adds two pinches of salt, a sprinkling of cracked pepper, and two generous shakes of onion powder. As she works she senses silent eyes on her, following her hands, but Beth does not look up; she lets the woman be, and proceeds with the jobs before her, the jobs she can do. _She can prepare this dinner_.

In some time more their noses fill with the sizzling aroma of cooking meat. The rice takes longer, much longer than the rest of the meal, as first the coals had to ignite and burn, the water allowed to boil, then the rice to cook. Simon stirs the meat and green beans, then, as filler, to spread the meal out across the six of them, he elects to mix in some of the chestnuts they'd roasted the night before, and then a third of a can of cannellini beans. When he's satisfied, he serves the meat and veggies in six equal parts for them to eat while the rice continues to cook.

For the first time since their meeting the group sits, three on the floor, one in the room's single chair, and Simon on the bed, where he can easily rise to tend the coals and the cooking rice. Daryl alone remains standing. Beth imagines this has something to do with the newcomers. Daryl, she knows, though so well defined by action, is a creature of comfort, when it can be come by. Much like a dog, when not on alert, Daryl sprawls his battle-ready body any place it pleases him. Now he leans against a wall, shoveling his food, making quiet observations.

"It's good," Walter nods, swallowing his first bite. "Thank you."

People eat, chew, swallow. "A lot of it's yours," Beth points out, her fork nearing her lips.

"We never—" Walter stirs his food around some "—bother much with seasoning, and all. Haven't planned a meal in ages."

"It helps," Simon says before swallowing another bite. "Morale, dignity…" He swallows. "Distraction."

"'Helps,'" the man nods. He takes another bite. "It certainly does."


	54. Chapter 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY! It's raining in LA! So, this isn't exactly as good as I'd hoped it would be, but I've run through it several times, and at this point I think I'm just going to let it be. I hope what I was going for comes across at least in part (it's reading a little fragmented and choppy to me). If you see room for edits, let me know, I think I could use them! ~ Jody xx

"Uhhh," Beth's light brow creases as she concentrates, her river eyes quickly darting back and forth, scanning the scene before her. "Button… Clippers … penny, bullet, and … nail." Her bright eyes flash from the collection of odds and ends on the floor to Walter, who, after a moment more produces his right hand from behind his back. When his fist opens he reveals, held in his palm, a plastic two-hole button, a small set of nail clippers, a 1976 penny, a 175-grain 7mm bullet, and a 10-gauge nail. The dimples appear before the smile, but Beth does smile, a small smile, simple in the pride of having accomplished something small, and complete. It's charming the way she's looking at that handful of junk.

"Nice job," Walter nods, and returns the items to the circle. "You're turn."

Beth shifts onto her knees and leans forward, tucking strands of blonde hair behind her ears that isn't yet quite long enough to stay when it's been tucked. "Okay—" Beth looks, "close your eyes." Walter, Bonnie, Simon, even Hadeel, either look away, or close their eyes. Beth reaches into the collection of items – not one larger than a pocketknife – and rearranges them, and then one by one plucks items away. She takes a spool of thread, then a safety pin, the working mechanism of a music box, and an orange plastic whistle. "Four?" she checks."

"Four, yeah," Walter confirms. Beth tucks the items behind her then invites their gaze to return. "Okay."

The others look, and scan for what has been removed. Bonnie idly drums her fingers on her raised knees as she looks. Walter rubs his upper lip. Hadeel looks straight on, having no use for distractions. Simon rises, forfeiting to check the rice.

"Safety pin," drums Bonnie, bobbing her head to music she hasn't heard in ages.

"Safety pin, thread, whistle, music box."

Beth reproduces the items, smiling at the silent woman who'd spoken so resolutely. "Yeah," she nods, "that's right."

Walter smiles, "She's really good at it."

Across the room, Daryl still leans silent against the wall. No longer used to getting used to people, he isn't sure that he can be again. Even as he moves forward in this life, pushes forward – for Beth, for the child – his thoughts direct him backwards, to the others he's loved. _There cannot be another Rick, another Carol. Never another Glenn or Michonne. Or Hershel Greene. Michaels, James, Peters and the rest, they do not abound in the world. Never will he have another brother by blood, someone with his own history, with_ _his own same scars._ _Knowing this, what's to recommend these people? Even if they prove_ w _orth the effort, what could they possibly have the others in his life did not, to keep them from one day too being nothing more than memories? Just three more lost comrades – by death or by disappearance, gone?_

Still, they need people. He's known this all along, and nothing's that's happened has disabused him of this. So he stands by, and he watches this forging of their groups happen, unable himself to make nice or make even passes at conversation, knowing all the while that Beth would urge him to make an effort, to judge them on their own merits, and not by the shadows cast by their absent family. One by one Daryl cracks his knuckles with his thumb. A child is to be born – without a larger family; brought into the world by them. If he no longer can connect with the people living in this world, it is a darker place his child will inherit than what is still possible to give. At some point, he knows, he'll have to make an effort. But not tonight. Tonight, while Beth and Simon are distracted by the novelty and the relief these three have brought, Daryl can slip unseen into numbness, brooding for days gone by, and the faces and the names that lived them. A laugh from someone playing the game breaks him from his thoughts. He shifts his weight. From where he stands removed from the others, Daryl speaks up, "What's th' point o'this?"

All eyes turn to him. "It's just a game," Bonnie answers.

"It focuses your concentration," Walter tells him. "Memory."

"If so," Daryl speaks again, "why not take 'em all out?"

"You work up to it," Beth explains.

The bathroom door reopens letting in heat, smoke, and Simon, carrying a saucepan of boiled rice. Simon kicks the door closed behind him and moves with his spoon and the pot around the room. "Put th' bricks on," he mentions to Daryl, "an' water's boiling."

Bonnie nods at Simon, looking him over as he serves Hadeel. "How old're you?"

The kid drops a scoop of rice in her own bowl next, then moves on to Walter's. "Fifteen."

She makes no response, though she's confirmed he indeed is much younger than his aptitude for this life would suggest. He's supremely competent, and considerably more talkative than the other two, and she wonders about the working dynamics of this trio.

Simon moves on, serving Beth, then Daryl. Before the rice hits Daryl's bowl, the archer nods in Beth's direction, indicating she get a portion of his already modest ration. He'd already dropped two chunks of his meat into her dish, ignoring her silent protest. Dutifully, without ceremony, Simon dumps a little more in her bowl, then takes the remainder as his, eating it right from the pan. Beth, not privy to Daryl's nod, watches Simon seat himself again at the foot of the bed while the others eat their soft-boiled grain. In the recent days passed, and no doubt too with the arrival of the newcomers, Beth and Daryl too have noted his development. Simon'd been the baby in camp, but he'd never been less capable. There he might have been quiet, more sensitive by nature, but he was every bit one of the brothers in the woods, and now in their absence he plays all their roles. Survival in their style was bequeathed to him, and Beth thinks he wears his inheritance well.

"Eyes," Hadeel speaks, having swallowed her first spoonful of rice. The players turn away and lithely she kneels forward, shuffles the items, and pulls away her pieces. Waiting to be signaled back, Beth pulls in tighter the blanket slung over her shoulders, then silently Hadeel returns to her spot. "Six."

The players turn back, Simon's eyes opening quicker than the rest's. Each spooning their rice slowly to make it last, they scan and concentrate. Simon sucks absently on his spoon, letting it knock some against his back molars as he studies the playing field. "Pocketknife…" he says. "Penny, compass… Uh…"

"Do you have much luck with the snares?" Walter asks.

"Some," Daryl monosyllabically rasps, pushing his spoon around in his bowl. "Nuthin's ever steady." Daryl takes his final bite. "'cept shit rolls' downhill."

Bonnie guffaws. "Daryl," she speaks, harmlessly amused, "you're a philosopher." His brow arches wryly, but she only smiles at him like they're in league. "Uh… broken watch!" she takes over for Simon who's currently just scowling at the collection and coming up short for answers.

As she waits for her challenge to be met, Hadeel burrows deeper into her sweater. The room is cold. Regardless of the wind and damp they're escaping, and the help from the grill and all the bodies, the room is cold, there's no denying.

"Can't get it," Simon shakes his head.

Beth, who's gotten a little sleepy, her eyelids growing momentarily heavy, also shakes her head. "Mm,mm."

"Walt?" Bonnie confers.

The man shakes his head. "'Uncle.'" Having not been bested, a whisper of a smile flashes briefly through Hadeel's steady gaze as she returns the unnamed item and its mates to the circle. "Well done," he nods. To the new players he explains, "She goes again, now, upping the count by two."

Once more they study the made-whole field, internalizing each and every item. Then she leans forward again, and the players look away once more as she shuffles and chooses. "Eight." They look back and scan…

"Lighter…" Bonnie starts them off. Popping the collar to her fatigue green coat, she and her buzzed-down mohawk nod good naturedly at her hosts. "So, lemme ask," Bonnie scoops her spoon through her bowl, "why this place?" Mouth full of rice, Bonnie continues. "I mean—" she swallows "—nuthin' wrong with a fireplace." Beth, Simon, and Daryl all raise their heads and look at her. "Am I right?"

"Bon—" Walter quickly curbs.

"Offense not intended," she amends. "We're happy to be here."

" _Grateful_ ," Walter specifies.

The expressions their hosts wear are shaded with resentment. Making the decision not to take it further, Daryl mutters the one-off, "Wasn't on the list."

"'The list'?"

Simon scrapes his fork along the inside of his bowl, though any trace of the meat and vegetables is long gone. "Walls are brick," he points out evenly; "hard t' burst in. Place's close to the road; we can see the highway – we can get out of town quick. Also see if vehicles pull in. We've got multiple doors between the street and us. The stairway leads to a switchback hallway – if we get stormed it grants us time. Flat roof; kept up well."

"He could go on," Daryl grunts, his eyes fixed.

Beth smiles for propriety. "We know what we're doing."

Truthfully, they may regret not having looked for a place with a working fireplace, and not holding out for a place with its own well, but they can work around both, and there may be no wells in Pierce, the town doesn't date back all that far. Most of everything they do is strategic and calculated, but they also survive on chance, on luck, and a great deal on instinct. The building felt right to them, possibly for the wrong reasons, but it did, and they acted on it. Invested a lot of sweat and effort into the cause. And they'll be hanged it they'll apologize for it. Though, rightly, they hadn't exactly been asked to.

Dryly Daryl glances at the floor. "Match, lighter, button, needle, AAA battery, blue pen cap, rubber band, toothpick."

"Right on," Bonnie nods impressed, watching the silent Hadeel one by one produce and return to the collection of small sundry indeed everything the archer'd just listed.

"And the shell case," he grunts. "She didn't take eight," Daryl's glance shifts to Hadeel, "you took nine." With that he slings aside his empty bowl, lifts his crossbow and strides out of the room.


	55. Chapter 55

From the bedroom all hear the distinct unlocking of the outer door, followed by its closing. "I pissed him off," Bonnie says, to no one in particular.

"No," Beth answers. "He's all right."

"Well," Walter clears his throat and bridges the awkwardness left behind in Daryl's wake, "maybe we'd better call it a night. Get some rest." He pulls the junk in to a tighter circle out of the way, and people pick out the few items of value they'd contributed. Using his knees for support, Walter rises stiffly from the floor. "I expect tonight we'll be sticking to our own, but I'll bet in time the ladies will take one room, and the men the other."

"No," Beth answers plainly as she moves about the room collecting the bowls and spoons to scrub clean.

"Once we're all used to each other, I mean."

"No," is all Beth says again. "Y'all have empty canteens? Bottles? We c'n pour in boiled water to help heat the covers. T'morrow we c'n move in better pads, or mattresses; g't a warmin' brick each, m'ybe some hot water bottles." They hand over what they have and she takes them and a light into the bathroom to fill up along with their own.

In the shuffling and the sorting of gear into the front room and the laying out of bedrolls in relative darkness, Bonnie finds occasion to lean in to Simon. "They together? Her and him?" Simon looks to where Beth and Daryl had been. He nods. "Out there," she says leaning in in confidence, "I thought maybe he was her dad, or an uncle or something."

Simon shakes out a crumpled blanket for one of them. "He's not her dad."

"She your sister?'

Simon glances at Beth who's turning down and heating her own bed. Though he knows full well what she looks like, still he looks again. _Are they similar?_ While both fair, her hair is darker than his white blonde. While her features are round and childlike, his young features are sharper and more angular. They are of an age to be siblings, and though they are indeed family, not the kind that was meant. "No." He shakes his head.

"And none of you knew one another before?"

"No."

Bonnie's upper lip rises in a semi snort. "I think hearing your all's story is going to be good."

"No, Ma'am," he says solemnly, tucking in a near-scalding canteen beneath the covers of the bed he's helped her make, "there's little that's good."

"Didn't need to say it that way," she grants with genuine feeling. "And didn't need to be 'ma'amed'," she tells him – just as earnestly, but with a touch of wry camaraderie. "Ever."

"Noted," Simon nods.

"Guess," the woman in her late thirties says, raising her tattooed arm to rub down her short strip of hair, "we all take some getting used to."

Simon shrugs, "Considering what's out there, I think we're doing all right."

In the poor light he doesn't catch the distant glaze that crosses over her, but he can hear the shadows his words cast in her deep and raspy voice, "You're right, kid." Soberly, returning from her momentary lapse into darkness, Bonnie nods. "Good day."

"Good enough," he snorts in equal to her earlier wryness. "Now," he nods at her pack with a bit of a glint, "if you've got cigarettes or coffee anywhere in there, Daryl'll love you. An' that'll be a _great_ day. Y'got both, even better."

"He's a tough nut to crack, isn't he." Again she asks a question, that really isn't a question at all.

"Think we've got some Sanka," Walter offers doubtfully from behind.

" _Yeh_ ," Simon sort of chuckles, heading back to his own room, "I don't know what that is, but by the sound of it, Daryl's not going to like it."

…

On the building's first level Daryl checks the security of the front door. Uncompromised. He looks through the shadowbox double-peepholes, installed specifically to work with the night vision goggles. When he's satisfied all is quiet on the other side, he circumvents the trip riggings and moves up to the landing to sit by his lonesome at the top stair.

He neither looks up nor stiffens when he hears the footsteps approaching. Over forest undergrowth, river stones, asphalt, or wood floorboards, he knows the sound of Beth Greene's approaching step. He learned it, and then he came to love it. Daryl waits, running a length of rope through his fingers, knotting it and tugging it free, letting her come to him. Carrying no light of her own, Beth meets him in the dim above the darkness of the stairwell. She sits beside him, looking into the black. "Ev'rything quiet?"

She didn't need to ask; the scene speaks for itself. But she did ask, and so he does nod. " _Yeh_."

Quietly Beth picks at a tear in the knee of his trousers, pulling lightly at the fray, piece by piece. "What do you think of them?"

Daryl keeps the cut of rope moving in his hands, twisting it and coiling it. "They're okay." Beth is impressed by his generosity in this given his perceptible dearth of it over the past hour. "Handled themselves well in th' streets. Didn't balk too much at having guns trained on 'em all that time."

"Still though," Beth says, her head tucked quietly in her palm, her eyes turning to him, "you don't like them?"

Daryl looks at her. He studies her in the near darkness, and she in turn tries to trace the thoughts as they come to him. There's a slight gesture of a shrug. "She's okay. She's quick. Thinks things through. She's got a mouth."

" _You_ have a mouth."

There's a momentary flash of a smirk sparking from his otherwise austere countenance; aspersions from her, spoken with that sweet drawl, from those lips he so loves, often strike him with the weight of a caress more than a censure. "Thought I's too quiet."

In silence his elbow nudges her, and Beth shifts in answer, and presses her lips to him, just above the bend of that elbow. "You have your moments," she speaks softly into his thick sleeve. Daryl nearly answers, but he does not. His rough hand lifts and strokes her hair. "… And the others?" she prompts, bringing them back to the matter.

As close to him as she is, Beth feels rather than sees his head nod in consideration. "He's all right. A'little stiff. Seems decent. She's…" and there's a change someway in his voice here "… I'dunno."

Soberly Beth leans her head against his shoulder. "Will you sleep?"

Daryl sniffs, tugs at his beard. "Don't think they're dangerous."

Beth breathes him in, absorbing him as she rests herself against him. "I agree." Her eyes strain to find his, "You aren't worried?"

Breathing in deeply, Daryl turns so that he can see her – "Are you?" He doesn't ask so that he might reassure her, he wonders if he's missed something she's picked up on.

It's still unfamiliar to them to have to debrief after the fact on things now; for so long it had only been he and she – living through each moment together, reacting, if not in unison, then in concert with one another. "I'h think they mean well. I'h think new people take time." In the darkness she lets her words linger. "I'h think we're lucky to have them, and things could have gone a lot worse."

Daryl knows this to be true. He doesn't like to say who he'd hoped it would be, breaking through that brush, but less does he want to tell her what he feared. Another day ends without them being made whole, but it is a day ended without gunfire, and one that has left them a little stronger than they were when they awoke. " _Yeh_." Daryl lets the rope hang slack from his hand. He shifts some again then to look at her. " _You like 'em_?" he grunts.

"They're not family," she answers needlessly, her slight hand reaching until she finds his to wrap into. Daryl's sturdy fingers effortlessly meld together with hers. "We needed people."

"We did," his low voice rumbles. There they let the conversation lie. Beth's finger traces the length of his thigh, traveling over punctures and tears in his weather-beaten trousers. Daryl releases her hand to run his fingers down the back of her head. Like magnets her hand finds his other. Fingers lace, and link, and mingle. Her head drifts again to his shoulder, nearer, oh so near to him. " _Daryl…_ " she seems to breathe.

" _Hi_ ," he mutters into her hair. Fractionally, at the rate of glaciers or land plates moving, they bend, and give, so that at one moment their mouths are some distance from each other, and then in another, with virtually no ostensible movement, their lips are one another's, sweetly, mutely, temperately, meeting in communion. They kiss for some length of time. Fading into one another they lose their grips on breathing and their mastery of solidness. Around them the world fades as they zero in on each other. Tongues coax, lips press, and kiss, and wordlessly whisper, and love. Bodies cling to one another quietly, hands caress, holding faces, clutching hair.

"You're cold," he says into her cheek where his lips brush and press. "You should go in." Her eyes still closed, Beth kisses his face, pressing soft lips to his brows, his cheeks, his eyelids, his mouth, lingering there, in his suspended company.

When once again her body shivers at the cold, Beth rises. Stepping to move away, Beth then stops, and turns back. "When we were out there—" she begins, and Daryl's hooded eyes look up to find her "– I thought—" She does not finish. "I _hoped_ —"

" _Yeh_ ," he grunts darkly. "I'know."

Their eyes meet, and they let the silence speak their thoughts for them.

Standing there, Beth can't quite conjure the words... "I've been waiting for people, Daryl... I jus'—"

" _Mm,hm_." He knows. He's knows exactly. In time he speaks, his gnarled voice warm like amber, and hard in its conviction, "Beth, them bein' who they 're," he looks at her soberly, "means you were right. Means there're still good people out there; the boys—" he blinks somberly, repressing their lost and altered faces, "these folks." It isn't often he speaks to her in this manner, but now he looks at her with great meaning, making his point, "Beth, your bein' right means our people out there got a chance." Though not his intention, his words strike her bluntly. Of a sudden her throat is tightly knotted and a blockage compresses her chest. Intensely she feels her longing, and her aching for what is missing. Unplanned on tears swell. Struck so intensely and unawares, she's surprised by the weight of her own reaction; after all, she's been living with this for months. "Right?"

Fighting through it Beth nods, sniffs, brushes back tears. She forces a needless smile, her eyes sparkling bright from the tears. "Mm,hm."

"M'ybe t'night," he offers. "M'ybe ev'ryone's sittin' back, eatin', givin' some new group a chance..."

Beth's face crinkles in a total capitulation to emotion. Through lingering tears she holds him in her eyes. When she finds her voice, her words speak as true as she ever had in her life. "I'h, absolutely love you."

Daryl stops motionless. He looks at her in stillness, even his blood barely moving. "... Beth—" Words fail him. His heart fails him. The distance of yards between them collapses in the grave intensity of their twosome. "Words don't—" His eyes on her, Daryl clutches at his shirt chest. "You're ev'rything I've got."  
Beth's hand remembers the swell obfuscated beneath layers of flannel and wool. She sniffs, and she grounds herself. Beautifully and messily Beth smiles, and sparkles. "I'm all yours." There is no brashness in her saying this; it's neither cute, nor charming, but rather is deeply, and sincerely felt.

Daryl blinks, and then from force of habit looks away, breaking their glance. "Get some sleep."

"Yeah," Beth nods. She turns.

"Hey," his warm, rough voice calls her back. Beth turns again. "You did good today."

Beth looks at him. "It was Simon."

"Naw," he shakes his head. "You did this, you made this happen."

"Simon stepped forward; it was he who first lowered the gun."

"It was you who said to ask the questions." Daryl looks at her. "You're old man – your dad, Beth, Hershel –" still he cannot speak the name easily to her "– he'd be proud."

Beth blinks. Her lips set. She looks away and then back. "Are you?" She doesn't mean _proud_ exactly. "Daryl," she speaks his beloved name so softly, "Are you all right?"

The tracker didn't see that coming. His sky eyes narrow and fix on her. " _Mm,hm_."

"…Honestly? If you're not all right, I'm not."

"We're good, Greene." Daryl nods for further assurance. "You're all right."

"… We couldn't last on our own."

Daryl Dixon nods again. "I know." Finally he bucks his wrist at her. "Go'on."

This time Beth does leave – him to his solitude, she to the apartment, the others, and bed. When she slips back into the apartment she thinks it must be Hadeel who's tucked so small into the sofa. On the floor – further apart from each other than what she'd expect from a group – lie Bonnie and Walter in bedrolls. "Goodnight, Beth," Walter's voice comes from the darkness.

" _G'dnight_ ," she answers softly, as she treads lightly past. Beth slips into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.


	56. Chapter 56

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read, and THANK YOU to those who have left reviews. They have helped SO much! Hearing from you on this last chapter has really helped me shape the direction of this next segment of chapters; I can feel people getting restless, which, 1. Confirms some concerns I myself have been having, and 2. Affirms how vital hearing from you all is. So, I have very specific visions for each of these new characters, but I totally get the resistance to having to get to know a whole new batch of OC's (I loved the Lost Boys, but I hadn't intended them to occupy so much real estate in the story; nor did I originally intend for one of them to outlast the camp with B&D) so I may not end up fleshing them out as much as I'd intended. For the sake of moving forward, and maybe to balance out some of the painfully minute details in this story, you might be seeing some time jumps in the coming chapters. I know the other issue humming around the story is the unanswered question of whether our protagonists will ever meet up again with Rick & the others. I *can* but won't say here whether that is going to happen; like the past question hanging over Beth's pregnancy, I feel strongly we can't know things before our characters do. I will however say this: back in December, without intending to, I drafted the final chapter to this story. Since it's early expansion past the first 4 chapter story arc I'd started out with, I've always known where/how I expected to close the story, but driving one night a scene popped into my head that I hadn't thought I was going to write - I pulled over and jotted it down. So the ending (while some ways off) is now secured, and I would point readers to the title of the story. Hopefully this helps. I wholeheartedly thank you for your readership, and for your active participation in this odyssey. Beth and Daryl still have some distance to cover and I humbly ask for your patience as we journey with them. With love and gratitude. ~ Jody

The blackout curtains, tucked-up the night before once all sources of light had been extinguished, now pose no impediment to the rays of light streaming through the blank, uncovered windows. Beth startled to wakefulness all at once when in her slumber she heard noises in the outer room. Her body started and grew rigid as it tightened in the anticipation of action. But then she listened, and she remembered: They are no longer alone. The muffled sounds from the other side of the bedroom door signal neither aggression nor an attack, only the starting of a new day. So pacified, and still inert, she remains abed, curled snuggly against Daryl, wrapped up in the brawn of his unconscious arms. Cocooned there under layers of blankets and quilts, Beth listens to the mundane sounds of people stirring, people rising, stretching, and shuffling about. Beneath that, more constant, is the deep, steady, influx of breath through Daryl's chest as it rises and expands in his heavy slumber.

"Think they must be up," Simon says from his nearby place on the floor. In answer Beth breathes in deeply. Not yet ready to speak, or even to pull herself from the comfort of her blankets or her bed companion, Beth trusts this will be enough. "Feels weird, some, don't it?" he asks, his head still nestled in his own pillow. "Knowing there're others out there?" Here Beth makes no reply at all — he of any of them is the gladdest for new company; Simon needs no reassurance here. In direct contrast to Daryl, and even now sometimes herself, Simon sorts things out by talking – he negotiates his realities through conversation, and that is all this is. When his feet touch to floor he'll be enthused and as amiable and affable as ever. "Do we go out there?"

Again Beth breathes in; she scrunches herself in closer to Daryl, presses a kiss below the scruff on his neck, then another beneath his jaw, and a third directly on his ear, then with effort to not disturb, she slips out from under his arm, pushes off the heap of covers, and braces herself for the chill in the air. "Mornin'." Beth rises, smiling at Simon who's sitting up now, scratching at his disheveled head. Pulling on the bulky cardigan she'd yanked off in her sleep during the night, Beth silently side steps over blankets and packs and boots and makes her way to the restroom, a trip she takes more and more these days. The majority of the water they haul goes toward drinking and to cooking, but a portion is used to flush the toilet on the occasions when it needs it. It isn't the setup they'd had at the prison, but for as often as her new body calls her to this act of nature, she is gratefully satisfied with the relative amenities of the apartment in comparison to the lives lived in woods or on the road.

When she reappears Simon nods in the direction of the double bed. "We getting him up?" Simon asks, tugging his jeans on over his long johns.

Knotting tightly the drawstring to her sweatpants, Beth looks to Daryl still sleeping soundly where she'd left him. "Think he must've been up most the night. I don't know at what point he came in."

"Wasn't too late," Simon sniffs, shuffling barefooted through the the room to take his turn in the john. "M'ybe an hour — no more — after you came in."

Knocking lightly on the bedroom door with the knuckle of her index finger, Beth waits momentarily then undoes the locks Daryl had clearly decided to still make use of, and opens the door. "Mornin'," she says softly, stepping through. The air in the outer room touches her as a few degrees cooler, the space being larger and more open.

"Good morning, Beth," Walter nods from his knees where he's rolling up his bedding for the day. "Simon," he adds, when the boy appears behind her in the doorway.

"Quiet night," Bonnie greets them both.

"Bathroom's open," Simon offers. "Daryl's still sleeping though, so—"

" _I'm up_ —" a graveled voice grunts from the inner room.

At the unexpected sounding of his voice Beth twists backwards into the room. In doing so her cardigan splits open, and free from the bulk of layers and the constraints of her jeans, Beth's full form takes its shape before their eyes. Though still compact, still more elongated against the length of her torso rather than forming an actual protuberance in her silhouette, and though still more than coverable by loose fitting shirts, sweaters, and winter bulk, it is there, observable and unmistakable; Beth's otherwise slim and lean frame clearly would not round in front as it does excepting for one singular causation.

"Uh—" Bonnie cuts off her startled reaction and wrestles some composure. "Oh."

Not just she but the full extension to the group had caught the glimpse of the still inconspicuous but definitely-there heavy curve in her abdomen. The man and the two women stare: this trio they'd trailed and studied in the woods seems never to run short on means to confound their expectations. They had not bargained for this, had not counted on taking on an ally in this condition.

Beth turns back round, pulling close her sweater as she does. The countenance she bears is not one awaiting the reception of this unintended reveal, rather it conveys a stalwart presentation of the facts: she is expecting a child, and every move and action she takes is made in consideration of that. Beth Greene does not seek congratulations or expect expressions of wonder. Neither does she intend to suffer challenges or accusations; nothing's changing the state of things now, nor would she any longer wish them changed.

She remembers though, as she looks at these still unfamiliar faces looking back at her in this way and at what she's taken on, words she once spoke. As long ago as it was, and as foreign as it feels, Beth still remembers the cold words she'd first spoken to Lori when news of her condition first spread. "' _How could you do that?_ '" she'd said, questioning if such a thing would make any kind of difference. So unjust, and blind, that sentiment had been. She remembers too the arrival of Sasha and Tyreese to the prison, and their sheer amazement and reverent awe at first seeing Judith. She remembers how that day she'd been taken for the mother. That day, not so very far back when counting in days and months, for Beth now feels half a lifetime ago. She was still a child then; a babysitter, nothing more. Judith was Rick's daughter, and Lori's; she had been her sweet young companion, sometimes in very dark times, but never anything more. Judith had never been hers. But this child is Beth's. And for it she will neither apologize, mitigate, placate, nor justify. Life continues, even amidst death; it is a lesson the world has always taught itself, each generation uniquely learning it anew from the degradations of their own times. Beth has learned it; with no other choice she's embraced it, learning too that where Life treads Hope is not long to follow. She believes this. She holds it close in its flickerings and sparks, cherishes it like she does the child she carries. Faith lives this way. "Yes," is her answer to their unspoken question.

For some time this one word dispelled all other initial responses, but in a few moments more the quiet of the room turns unnatural and so then Bonnie, in her brusque and smiling manner, disrupts the silence. "How far along?"

Beth looks from them to her waistline; she can't be certain. Like most things from the old days, Time has altered from what it was. She feels it and sees it both, but the measuring of it passing eludes her, and this is a sort of accounting never asked of her before. "Four months. I' think." Again the three newcomers withhold remarks.

Reliably, Simon breaks in with the offering of a far less sobering prospect: "There's rice," he smiles. "An' a little applesauce if you want. An' cinnamon." He seems to have made that last offering especially for Hadeel's benefit. Currently she sits upright in her nest of blankets on the sofa, holding her knees and very quietly, and intently, studying the pregnant girl before her. Simon does not know her story but anyone can see she's lost — probably _been robbed of_ would be closer to the truth — far more than what any person should have to endure. Something in him, though she at the very least surpasses him in age by ten years his senior, compels him to reach out to her in kindness, in small and gentle acts that amount to little more than momentary minuscule distractors from the darker places her mind seems ever to be pulling her.

This news of theirs now broken, Daryl here rises, and those who'd changed to nightclothes dress for the day. They eat quickly, they wash and relieve themselves, and thus their first day as an united group begins. "There's a veterinarian's clinic in town," Daryl tells them. "Could have meds; could have more. You up for it?"

Walter looks up from lacing the work boots that surely never had been his before the turn. "It must be overrun if the three of you haven't done it on your own already."

"Nuthin' six can't handle."

"You mean five," Walter amends.

"She's got it," Daryl grunts.

Looking away from the brief obligatory glance towards Beth, Bonnie fixes again on Daryl. "So how bad is it?"

"C'n be done."

"We have any reason to think what we're after's still going to be in there?"

"We have a good feeling," Beth answers.

"If we do this, tell me," Walter asks, not aiming at confrontation, "how are we meant to know the difference between what we can use, and what would be, used for worms?"

"She'll know." Daryl takes up the crossbow and checks the sights.

"You a nurse? A med student?"

"Her dad was a vet." Daryl tests the resistance in the pulleys.

"I worked with him a little," Beth speaks up, surprised a little by the casual ease with which she's speaking of her father. "I can read labels. There'll be a book. If it's not picked over, we'll get antibiotics. There'll be antiseptics, bandages, suture kits."

"Sold?" Daryl grunts.

"Should we be expecting the return of our firearms today?" Walter questions.

Lifting his head from tightening the bolts on the crossbow Daryl looks at him, steadily. "Gunfire draws 'em on."

"We're not alive by chance, you know," Bonnie points out dryly.

Daryl eyes her squarely, then the two others; wordlessly he pulls Walter's pistol from his waistband, balances it level in his hand, then gives it over. "Just so we're straight."

"We're straight."

Armed with blades and restored guns, six figures descend the rigged stairs, pass through the building's reinforced door, and step out into the light. Blocking the door behind them they move into the road and spend some time clearing the roaming dead from the streets, making their way to their target destination.

Positioned outside the vet's, making a plan to clear it with their doubled numbers, Daryl stands motionless, his hands fidgeting while he formulates a strategy. The others modtly pace or wait; Hadeel steps off to dispatch a walker moving in on them.

"Back entrance's got an iron gate." Simon announces, returning from the alley. "Locked tight."

"Crowbar?" Beth asks.

Simon's scruffy head shakes. "Won't make a difference. We go in loud, we lose the surprise we needed. Can't bust in at both fronts, won't help any."

"Why not reverse it?" Walter speaks up. "Use the front as the back way? That door will break in easily."

"Right," Daryl grunts. He waves a finger at Walter, "You get the service door open; you an' Beth take 'em out in the alley one at a time. Rest of us go in behind 'em through the storefront."

"What if there's a block in there somewhere?" Beth interjects. "A back office, kennels, exam rooms; opening the back door doesn't mean they'll get straight through to it, may be no cleared path. You could be goin' in there with no reduction at all."

He looks at her, listening to her words. "Give it some time, if none come through, clamp it closed and come 'round."

"And if they do come?" Walter questions. "And they come too many and too fast? No way we two control the door just us. Give us Hadeel, even out the numbers." Daryl hesitates, going in with only three puts them back to where they'd been before these three arrived. In thought his lower jaw juts to the right as he measures and calculates, negotiating the odds they'll face inside and what'll most help Beth outside.

"We can do it with two," Beth assures him.

"If we can control the door."

Daryl hesitates, shifting the weight he stands on. " _Yeh_ ," he grunts with a wave, "take 'er." He says it this way, but his eyes meet with Hadeel's. The trio moves off, Beth already handling her blade as she makes with them to head for the alley. " _Hey_ ," Daryl calls, and when the three heading for the back entrance pause, he leans in some with an earnest grunt, "You hear the signal you make for the street. They come at you too quick you run."

"Yeh," Beth promises.

"You break the door open, you whistle, we move in. Keep control of the door."

"Yeh."

In the alley, dim under the cover of the close set buildings, Walter grips the crowbar. Clutching tightly he leverages the bar to pry open the security gate. Beth, leaning against the dirty cinder block wall as they wait, lets her eyes find their shadowy silent third. Beth wets her lips. "You were testing him," she says evenly. Those dark cumin eyes flash to her. "Last night, in the game." Beth's lashes flutter over her large blue eyes. "You took the extra piece — not for us; he wasn't playing, but you took it to test him, see what he sees." She didn't much expect an answer — it really hadn't been a question, and Hadeel makes no reply, but Beth knows she's correct in her conclusion. She's certain this woman sees all, and realizes she must have seen the same in Daryl. Beth does not feel it as a threat.

As the tall man leans his weight into the tool and pushes and pulls, he looks back at Beth who's at the ready with her blade. "How old are you?" Bracing himself he pushes again.

Beth's clear eyes meet his. "Nineteen." She feels Hadeel's silent, ever present eyes on her. "'r nearly."

Walter huffs from his labor. "You ready to be a mother?"

Beth looks at him coolly. "I'h don't believe in 'ready.' There's no such thing."

He nods. "That may be true." He regrips the bar for leverage, and he looks at her before taking another try. "You're all right?"

Her dimples appear in her earnest. "Mm,hm." Again she feels Hadeel just watching her, viewing her through the life of those mute almond eyes.

"All right then," Walter nods, reminding Beth in this some of a guidance counselor — concerned, paternal, removed, and bromidic; she does not mind it. With a final push of his weight the door jars open. " _All right_ ," he says again, this time wiping his wetted brow and chuckling with satisfaction. Then the noises from within come, and his feet ground him to the asphalt. The broad man with the sharp eyes leans in, looking first to Hadeel, then to Beth. " _Ready?_ " The two women secure their footing, ready their blades, and grimly nod. Beth whistles the signal and behind the door the shuffling and snarling sounds. Walter braces his weight in the anticipation of having to slam it closed after letting through the first one or two, then swings open the gate.

On the other side, having broken through without much clamor, Simon, Bonnie, and Daryl press in in stealth, hacking into the disoriented dead. They clear with active, voracious efficiency. Furiously they strike and slash, feeling the want for an extra hand but compensating for it with purpose. The hoard in the waiting room thins and they push forward, navigating their way past reception and through aisles of filed charts. It's clear there'd been a struggle here, not a standoff so much as a mob. Maybe just a community descended into panic.

"Hey—" Bonnie nods through a heavy breath.

Daryl turns to glance at her. "'Daryl,'" he names himself for her with a sort of rough and jaunty pause in his labors.

" _Yeah_ ," she nods satirically. "I can learn three names." Solidly she jams her six inch blade into the head of a female left with only half of what had been her scalp. Daryl's brow shoots her a sort of nonplussed look. Nobody really speaks to him this way. Even when Beth sasses him, it's something different. Bonnie retracts her knife and moves on; to her left Simon stomps the skull of one he's tackled to the ground, and Daryl swings the base of his narrow bow directly into the face of something that used to be a doctor. They press on, moving stealthily towards the distinct sound of closely confined walkers, somewhere up ahead in the darkness. "...So," she starts again, her husky voice lowered for their surroundings, "yesterday, in the woods— how're you able to tell we were living, and not one of them?"

Daryl glances at her briefly. "How c'n ya tell a g _a_ tor from a d _o_ g?"

She looks at him, then nods wryly, suppressing a chuckle. "All right then."

"Com'on; w _e here for a j_ o _b?_ 'R a symposium on whut makes a thing itself?" Not unkindly, Daryl rolls his broad shoulder forward and leads them onwards, in deeper into the hospital, to the stainless steel supply cabinets, and the mob pushing at the back door, out to where Walter, Hadeel, and Beth await them, blades brandished and deadly.


	57. Chapter 57

Days pass, and weeks. A month and a fortnight they work and live together. They grow accustomed to each other, and to the manner in which each inhabits the life of a survivor. They've come to trust one another, their judgment, their abilities. No longer when Daryl leaves to walk the snare lines does he duck his head towards Beth and Simon telling them to stick together. The construct of three and three is no more.

In melding the groups together it did not take Bonnie, Walter, and Hadeel long to look past their own filters, their own experiences of this new and darker world, and to see the thing between the girl Beth and the fully adult Daryl as completely equal in footing. Unlike what they might have initially suspected, she is not indentured or indebted to him, he is not manipulating her. Once assured of this, and it did not take long, they were able to reconcile with Beth's condition and the overall dynamics of the group. Walter had only questioned Beth because of what he's seen along the way; Hadeel's watchful eye stayed close because of what she's known, what she's been through. But Beth and Daryl are not that, nothing close. It did not take them long to discern, and in some way the certainty of this helped to bring them all together.

Together they live around the silences of each other's unspoken pasts, picking up pieces of one another's history from the trails their paths cut. Here and there the newcomers hear the names of six young men and accounts of their life in the Georgian backwoods. So too do they hear of a Rick, a Maggie and Glenn, a Carol and a Carl. They hear of a little girl born into this world and of her mother who did not survive. And similarly Beth, Simon, and Daryl patch together the traces of the steps that lead these three to traveling the road together. He'd been married, had a wife and two stepsons. For a career he'd managed several parking lots for the city of Covington, up north in Kentucky. That was before the turn, before he and his family started heading south to link up with his wife's brothers. It was outside Knoxville that things broke down. He lost his older son first, then his wife and their younger boy together. In South Carolina Bonnie saw her long time partner ripped to shreds when the refugee camp they were in fell. The chaos of Columbia turning saw them, their two coworkers, and the fourteen wards of the state entrusted to their care, caught unprepared and poorly equipped to combat the rapid collapse of their camp. Like dominoes the people she knew, cared for, and loved, fell and turned, till only a precious few were still standing. That was when the state guard descended upon them and evacuated the living. They'd been taken to Fort Jackson and then left to fend for themselves. Initially there were upwards of two or three hundred refugees, but after several breaches from the dead, and fights and tensions breaking out amongst survivors, the numbers quickly dwindled. When the food ran out, so did the last remnants of civility. The place disintegrated quickly and people broke off in groups and clans, on their own and in pairs. Bonnie and the two remaining teens entrusted to her care set out with nine others. In the world that was no longer the world, they cut their teeth and learned the basics of survival: Strike the brain; scavenge; stick together; assimilate. Over time losses were suffered, the group both shrank and swelled. Bonnie's two minors never made it to the Georgia border. It was well more than a year in when Bonnie's refugee group merged with the handful of people Walter was by then traveling with. Little is learned of Hadeel's story, but what Daryl'd initially read as hollowness proves to be more haunting. Nothing about her is empty; just by watching her it's clear she carries far too much. At some point she'd been separated from her family, her parents and her sister, and taken. She was held. For some length of time. In that time she was all alone, except for when she wasn't; and her treatment by her captors - judging by the guardedness with which she comports herself, her affinity for being nearer Bonnie and Beth - was less than humane. Little more needs to be known about the men who held her; her broken, hunted ways betray enough. Through her caginess, through her aptitude for absolute stillness and her tendency toward restlessness, and those active, cunning, wounded eyes of hers, the human capacity for cruelty, objectification, and heartlessness take form, cutting deep scars. When near, Daryl takes care to afford her space; he never touches her, or stands too close, he knows he makes her nervous - the stature with which he bears himself, the sturdiness of his frame. Though the stories have never been recounted for him, he knows what he must represent for her, and quietly he maintains some radius between them. Daryl understands what it is to cower even when standing tall and strong. Her ordeals did not break her, she survived to become a key asset to this group, but recovery is slow, and does not travel a straight path. It'd taken him all his years to live past his early life. That, and a lot of blustering and brashness, bad behavior and bravado; it took the fall of the world, and a slip of a girl easing her way in and burning a house down, to come close to the man he might have been all along had chance forged him any differently.

In the wake of lost pasts, lost lovers, lost families, and unspoken trauma, these six merged together with a conscientious and industrious focus on the now. In time all names but each other's drop from their lips. Life takes the form of functionality and routine. Food is sought, scavenged or killed, prepared and eaten. Water is collected, boiled, and drunk. Walkers are killed, corralled, skirted, and fought. Defenses are made. Perimeters are monitored. Days are repeated. One after the other after the other. Life lived on repeat amidst peril is something other than mundane; monotony is a relic of the old world, but little serves to disrupt or distinguish the days from one another. Walkers come in different numbers, some days it rains, some days there's fog, some days chill them to the bone. Twice they spotted travelers on the highway, and another two times they detected scavengers picking through the town, but they never met. Their precautions preserved their low profile and in the weeks that passed they suffered no clashes with the outside world. It seems like maybe, if luck holds out, they might never.

A kiss presses softly to the side of her face, "Hey there," his raspy voice greets her warmly as Daryl passes by, moving into the room. "How 'ya doin'?" Beth smiles. "It's cold in here, you been moving any?" Leaning the crossbow against the wall he hitches the waistband of his trousers and strides into the open kitchen.

"Been sewing." Daryl shoves a fistful of dried meat into his mouth then leans over her shoulder and inspects what she's doing. On top of tending to the solar oven they'd some weeks back installed on the roof, Beth's spent the afternoon ripping out the seams at the waist of her jeans and stitching in patches of cut denim. On the road two winters ago she'd watched Lori use her own back pockets to widen her waistband; now from garments salvaged from town Beth works at the necessary alterations to her own modest wardrobe. In these passing weeks Beth's watched and grown, anticipating and preparing for her time to come. Still far from full term, her belly grows, the fullness of it each day making a little fainter the memories of the hours and days spent in uncertainty and doubt. "Could do your pant legs," she offers once again, "while I'm at it."

"They're fine," he chews, and swallows, "don't bother."

"Daryl," she reasons, speaking in that subdued rational voice he knows so well, "you've got them tethered to your ankles. I could stitch 'em together; reinforce them there, maybe too at the knees, from the inside."

Licking his fingers, Daryl shakes his head. "They're all right."

"Or, we could just find you a new pair." She doesn't seem to have any hope of him agreeing to that.

"Said don't bother." Though still more than three months away, Beth's time is approaching – measured in the mending of waistlines and in sleepless nights, in bouts of energy and the amassing of necessities. The coming of the child weighs on Daryl, and even as Beth prepares, reading over and over the pages of the delivery books she found amongst the shelves of the town, he silently runs scenario after scenario through his head. He'd been discouraged after learning neither of the women they joined with had ever born a child – never married, Hadeel was still enrolled in her Master's program when the world fell, (she suspects now her body's sustained too much trauma to ever entertain to sustain a pregnancy), and Bonnie's persuasion never would have brought her a child through her own conception. Even Walter's two kids had been born before they'd become a part of his family. Daryl had hoped to find assets, allies of experience for Beth and he in this endeavor; they had not, and so his uneasy anticipation keeps him moving, and – though he pushes himself to expect nothing but a safe outcome – ever slightly on edge. It certainly keeps him resistant to letting her fuss over him. It does not faze her; whatever rattling around he's doing now will abate she knows when it matters. She relies on nothing like she relies on his steady strength, and that thing in him that's always got him checking their backs, but still believing things can work out. It's Daryl, and she needs nothing in the world like she needs him, exactly damaged and resilient as he is.

"Will it rain, do you think?" Beth asks, navigating his temperament.

Daryl glances at her, simultaneously resentful of her ability to steer him to conversation and admiring of her skill at doing it so easily. His crossed brow slackens. "Skies're clear." He takes a swig from her water glass, "Don't think we'll see another rain for more than a week still. Prob'ly more."

Her face shadows with concern as she looks up at him from her needlework, "We need the water."

In answer his eyes meet hers, holding them for a time, then he shrugs, shrugging off her worries and his, "We've got enough. Rain'll come." Dragging out the chair beside hers Daryl straddles it with his old easy swagger. "Storms'll be on us soon. More likely we'll drown b'fore dry out." As a sort of reassurance he grins cockeyed at her, and when Beth places her hand on his he bends down to it to kiss. "We're doing okay."

"That's not like you to say," she smiles.

Daryl smirks. "Then it must be true."

Pulling tight her thread through the stiff denim, Beth smiles and lifts her woolen feet from the ground, finding room for them in his empty lap. His eyes drift down, again his expression softens, and he takes her feet into his calloused hands, pulling one sock off and then the other, to rub and warm, working them with the bones and muscles of his work-solid hands.

Subject to this attention Beth's body sinks back some in her wooden kitchen chair and her eyelids flutter in muted distracted pleasure. "...Do you think about it?" she asks, a little dreamily. He glances at her through his thick fallen hair, but his hands do not stop molding and kneading the arches and bends of her feet. "...Who it'll be?"

"'Be?'" his heavy voice rumbles. "Got a feelin' it'll be a baby." Beth pushes through another stitch, watching the thick navy thread pull taut and straight. "One tha' looks like you if it knows whut's good for it." Gripping her feet together Daryl holds her there, and looks at her that way she remembers he first looked at her, so long ago that night they'd been stormed by the dead in the funeral home. That night when it was still too soon to say it, still too soon to act on it, or to know it even for certain for what it was, but in whatever manner he did then, he loved her, as he does now, only more so, deeper, and in all respects.

Her feet pull some from him now as suddenly her posture straightens and the features of her face brighten and pause. So open and beautiful is she in the moment he can look nowhere else but at her. Drinking her in, he watches her as she inexplicably almost shines in a self-contained giggle, and then her stitching's dropped to the wayside and she's leaning forward, gripping at his forearm, tugging his hand to her, and holding it fast to her waistline. Motionless, Beth watches his hand, and Daryl watches her. She holds him there, waiting, and then it happens. Again she swallows her delight. "Did you feel it?" she whispers.

Daryl's eyes, suddenly soft and glistening, look from her to her hand covering his, and to the shape of the child fluttering and quickening beneath their grasp. "Hell…" his strong voice quivers.

Beth blinks softly. "…I'h thought I felt it earlier today." With her free hand Beth reaches to him, first cradling his face then brushing clear his eyes. Daryl clutches the hand and deeply presses his heart into it, his lips, his love, his faith.


	58. Chapter 58

 

 

 

"What's that one?" Daryl asks, gesturing at a lengthy thick character etched on Bonnie's thick forearm. The room, as always, is dim, but as they sit across from one another at the kitchen table, dismantling and cleaning weapons, the light the lanterns throw is enough for them to see by.

Bonnie glances at it, the sleeve tattoo, though she knows it well. "'Dyke'."

Daryl's brow lifts from his work on Simon's gun in a mix of amusement and doubt. He tugs at the scruff of his beard, then looks down again, like he isn't quite sure of where his eyes should be. Easily his trained hands resume the rote work on the semi automatic pistol. "What language is that?"

"Japanese."

" _Yeh_? You speak it?"

"My mother's family."

Scrubbing the bore, Daryl's brow rises, but never does he make the effort to lift his eyes. "It really say that?"

Rubbing her free hand back over her short strip of hair, Bonnie sort of smirks good naturedly. "Might as well." She looks at it again, clenching her fist and watching the text and the surrounding blossoms, birds, and waves strain and tighten in a multicolored flexing, remembering maybe as she does a life decimated, now only realized in the inedible colored ink shading her skin, "Close enough." Bonnie takes up again the handgun she's working on, taking care to oil the barrel locking lugs. "You've got some ink," she nods at him. "How many have you got?"

"Eh," Daryl estimates, brushing crud from the slide, "eight."

"Do any of them yourself?"

Daryl scoffs. "Can't draw f'r shit." In short quick puffs he blows grit out from behind the recesses and the extractor. "You do some'o yours?"

"One on my calf, and…" she oils the hinge pin, "I did the branch work in my chest piece." With a hooked finger she tugs lightly at the open collar of her shirt to expose a part of a pinup girl, at once rockabilly and Japanese, standing under a paper parasol and falling sakuras. Daryl gives it not much more than a glance; it's a fine piece, but it's a little unnerving for him to keep his eyes in a region so close to intimate as that, even as uncharged and banal as the moment is. "Designed these blossoms too," she points to her sleeve. "Nothing too technical—" she observes, peering down the barrel she holds, scouring the fouling "—could never really do the shading."

Daryl nods, scrubbing hard at the breech face. "You work with th' real equipment or prison style?"

"Done a little of both, actually. But, uh, it's called 'homespun' Dixon." She shakes her head, "Youth social worker; not about to elevate the mythic profile of prison life."

At this point Daryl glances up. "Don't got a clue what'chu mean by _'profile',_ but all that's long gone by now. Th' name of a thing don't matter."

"Yeah it does," she says surely. "You know it does." Quietly Daryl looks at her; blinking, he considers if he agrees: _Does the naming of a thing matter?_ When she speaks again it's with a lighter air, a seamless redirection. "That little piece on your hand looks home done." Daryl figures this must always have been a skill of hers, working with the kinds of kids she always had — touching truth and then backing off, infusing every conversation and interaction with immediate camaraderie, unthreatening and unintrusive.

Daryl looks down at the small blurry star inked on the fold between his right thumb and index. ... _Merle_ …

Never bothering with Daryl's reasoning, he'd given him shit for asking for something so small, so pussy as that tiny star, but in the end Merle'd spat, said, "Long as it ain't six pointed," then marked his kid brother with his first tattoo. That was the second night he was home from juvie, the second time. Maybe the third... A few months later he was gone again.

" _Yo_!" At the sound of Simon's shout traveling up the stairs, Daryl and Bonnie brace for action, reaching for weapons before he need call anything more. "Walkers! North side of town!"

Noisily their chairs push back, one topples over. They spring up and move with haste, taking up machetes, the crossbow, and rifles as they bolt. " _Beth_!" Daryl shouts in the direction of the bedroom, "Stay put!"

* * *

"It's rainin'," Beth whispers into Daryl's bare arm where it holds her tightly to him. The days have been dry. They have been cold, there have been winds and fog banks, but there has not been rain. Though at times the bitterness eats through their layers, this has not been the winter they were expecting, the rains have not come, and their town is drying out. They ration water more severely now, each day studying the clouds, their eyes fixed to the cold grey skies for signs of weather. Now, warm in bed, beneath blankets and comforters and wrapped tightly up with Daryl and his warm, radiating skin, Beth hears the welcome drops from the eaves and window trim just outside. A slow drip drop, but steady, and telling of more coming.

Pulling her bare leg a little further onto his, wrapping her in closer, holding her a bit snugger, Daryl waits, and listens. "'S not rain."

" _It is_ ," she says pressing her words into his chest where her head lays comfortably. "Don't you hear it?"

Daryl holds her, their bodies entwined, his hands strong against her back. "No. It's the fog. So heavy it's collecting. It's not rain. Listen—" he stops talking, stops breathing "— you hear it on the roof?" Beth listens, but she doesn't have to. She already knows he's not wrong. No rain, still. "It'll come," he kisses into her head. "It'll come." His hand reaches up and strokes her hair, longer now, but still nothing like it was. It will take months more to reach her shoulders. Beneath the covers Beth's feet find his, she presses them and rubs them. " _Hey, Love,_ " he breathes. She doesn't answer but kisses his chest, running her hand along his torso. Her knee climbs further over his legs. "Yeh," he mutters, "get that knee over here." Reaching down Daryl grasps right above her knee and takes hold her thigh, pulling it higher and nearer to him. Griping her to him Daryl nuzzles his scruffy face against her. " _Mm_."

Somewhere in the room, beyond their bed, Simon clears his throat. "Think I'll take up a watch — check the perimeter." Rising quickly Simon snags up his change of clothes, his coat and his boots and carries them out in his arms to the front room, discretely locking and closing the door behind him. "Y'all have a good morning."

Daryl's words speak directly into her soft hair. "Mistook us f'r Glenn n' Maggie."

For what seems like maybe the first time, hearing her sister's name does not pain Beth, instead it recalls to memory happier times, and Beth smiles into him, kissing his throat and underjaw through a slight giggle.

Daryl turns onto his side to face her. Softly he brushes the hair from her eyes. " _Hey–_ " His voice is rough and low, sounding like slow rolling thunder. "How ya doin'?"

Beth stretches and smiles. "I'hm good." Her chapped lips press to his shoulder. "How're you?" Thirty-something walkers had roamed in off the highway in the early evening the night before. Their setup is meant to withstand a hoard of that size, and they might have just let them pass, but they didn't want to take any chances of the town permanently filling up with them, and their path had been leading them too close to the rain barrels, which however low could not afford to be knocked over. Daryl'd been thrown to the ground wrestling two biters at once. His back is out, and he pulled a muscle in his right shoulder, but he'll be all right. With some doing the five of them dispatched the lot of them, successfully prolonging the security of their private ghost town some time longer.

"I'm all good." Ignoring the morning noises beyond their door and the dark bruising no doubt emerging on his whole left side where he fell, he kisses her, gently, his quiet lips pulling on her bottom lip. Her clear river eyes and restless lashes mesmerize his attention, and his hands on her, Daryl takes her in. "Com'ere t' me." Beth unfolds into his undoing of her, relishing the sensation of his warm bearded mouth on her skin. Not often do they find time together for just they two, and slowly and easily they give way to it, limbs tangling and opening, hands grasping and carressing. Beth is soft and warm and alive beneath his touch, and she opens all parts of herself to him, yielding before he asks, giving before he takes. He is salt, and earth, and action in her mouth and she tastes him from chest to thigh, running her tongue and her fingertips down the length of his sturdy frame. Full of love and care and desire for her, Daryl takes her in his hands, turns her back on her side and tucks into her, bending where she bends, curving where she curves, his mouth taking in deep draws from the cool slope in her neck. There in his hold Beth breathes and luxuriates. The well known hands of the tracker trace her, slipping beneath the soft folds of her shirt, molding her swelling breasts, brushing over her swollen belly. His teeth take hold her exposed earlobe as one hand ventures further south, into the nether regions of her lower garments, attentive and generous. In the timing of their breaths and their silences, waistbands are loosened and dropped, and easily their bodies bend into each other, finding each other like coming home, like fate, like love. It's been some time and they've needed this, its ease, its livening, its fortifying. Beth grips his hand to her, clasps at his muscled leg where it holds her in place to him where she lies. The purity of their sensations pulse through them with wetted pleasure, aching for more, unable to get any nearer or closer. In silence her mouth turns to his and with unabated passion they meld and tangle. The rhythm they keep is slow, steady like a river, wanting like a well. Her breathy pants spill into the folds of her pillow, and his rough breaths, silent and brusque, warm her neck, her ears, her throat with thrilling urgency.

" _Daryl_ —" her fingers lace tightly with his, gripping "— _love me_ —"

"— _I've got'ch'you_ —" His mouth claims hers, tighter he holds her, deftly he attends her, all but consuming her. Enwrapped in each other, pace quickens, force strengthens, immediacy compounds, until limbs and bodies buck and curl and extend and give. Together they _Release— Breathe— Soften— Meld—_ while still outside water that is not rain drops from the windowsill outside.


	59. Chapter 59

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much all for reading! I am so thankful for your readership and support. Endless heartfelt thanks to reviewers, it not only keeps me going, but helps to shape and tame the writing! [Again I've truncated / fast-forwarded a little from my original plan, my hope is this still lands.]

" _Florida_?" Daryl balks, looking hard at them with unforgiving incredulity. Having pushed back hard from the dinner table he stands there fighting to make sense of what's just been uttered .

The looks on the faces of Bonnie and the two seated beside her are heavy and somber. Soberly she looks at the rough and volatile archer she's grown fond of over the past two months; this isn't easy for them to broach. They've been dreading this– "It was always the plan" —dreading and regretting.

"Since wh _e_ n?" he challenges.

"Going back some time. Long before we found you all."

"And you never said an'thing till now?" he blusters, flinging his arm in their general direction.

"What's in Florida?" Simon intervenes with characteristic grace.

Here Walter takes up the exchange, sucking air in slowly through his mouth before shifting his weight and steadily, evenly taking on Daryl's indignation. "Warmer weather, for one."

"G _eor_ gia ain't hot'nough for you?" Daryl vollies at them. Heavily he paces over the floorboards, ticked off that this is happening, pissed that he hadn't seen it coming. He hurls a heated glance in their direction. These three aren't family, but they're trustworthy, and they're something. He'd grown accustomed to them for sure.

"Hurricanes too," Beth adds, and beneath his knit brow Daryl glances at her, paying tribute to her contribution in this campaign they've got to rally against this ludicrous plan.

"So, great w _ea_ ther," he barks, "'specially with all the _air_ conditioning you'll have down there, an' humidity t' rival hell. Anything _else_ behind this g _e_ nius idea?"

"It's not the weather," Bonnie intercedes with composure.

Daryl looks at her with deadened eyes, "What is it then?" He'd been counting on them, relying on them being there.

Bonnie looks at him, readying him for a surrendering of their reality's truth. "Walt's still looking for his family."

This stops Daryl; his rancor dissipates as he looks from Bonnie to Walter. Caught off guard he exhales, looks away, then looks back with a keen edge. "You think you still c'n find _'em_?"

" _Daryl_ —" Beth is quick to chastise. _No matter the circumstance, no matter the odds, he does not have the right to ask that._

"Aren't you all still looking for yours? For Maggie, for Rick, for Peter? For all the others?"

" _Yes_ ," Beth answers for him when her partner takes too long to.  _They don't have the right to jeopardize the fragility of someone else's hope, or to not carefully tend to their own._

Daryl shakes his head in bitter consternation, his eyes roll. He hazards the reach, "All three 'f you?"

"Yes," Bonnie nods. "All three of us."

"If Simon was needing to get some place, would you send him off on his own?" These are Hadeel's words, and they're all the weightier for being such.

This time Daryl doesn't need time, he answers quickly and with conviction. "No."

An awkward silence of mutual recognition and resignation settles upon them. The room that had been a home to them all now marks a divide.

"S _o_ —" Simon looks from face to face, "this is happening?"

Walter looks at them each in earnest, "You know you are welcome to come. Very welcome."

"No..." Beth shakes her head softly, almost whispering. They will not be joining. They can't leave Georgia. If they're to find what they've lost, they cannot leave. And should it be that those they seek have moved on, inherently Beth and Daryl know they wouldn't have headed south to the panhandle or below. This parting is hard, but if they're set on going, a parting is what this has to be. Daryl, Beth and Simon may not be counting on this apartment for the long term, but they won't be leaving it to get further from where they're going. This is a parting by choice, that is no choice at all.

Daryl's fingers can't keep still through his lasting agitation. "When's this happ'ning?"

There's a beat, a silent moment in which they all acknowledge goodbyes are coming. Walter grips and rings his hands where they rest on the tabletop. "Soon." It isn't easy to say. "It's been dry," he says. "A dry winter. Town's running out of water, the stream is running low." He looks almost ashamed to be saying all of this. "With things as they are, seems like sooner will be better. And—" he rubs at the raw knuckle on his left ring finger, "time's a factor; it's taken so long to get this far—" He doesn't make mention of the odds this expanse of time is setting him up against, or mention why they allowed for this seven week lapse.

The words spoken, Simon sighs. "Hell, _ya'll_ ," his head shakes with remorse. "We'll miss you."

"Likewise," Bonnie nods.

"It's been a privilege," Walter says. "Thank you."

Obligatorily resigned, Daryl returns to the table and leans over to extend his hand to the man seated across the table from him. "Good luck, Man." They shake, and following he clutches Bonnie's hand in a close grip. "All of you."

Softly Hadeel's hand reaches for Beth's. "Our best wishes for the baby."

Solemn and unhappy, Beth tears some; she holds the cool slender hand to hers, and smiles through yet another loss. "Thank you."

"Beth, _y'all_ ," Bonnie looks in earnest from her, to Daryl and then to the kid, "we're sorry to be leaving before the birth. We'd stay, if we could."

Beth's head shakes slowly. " _Family_. We get it." Her dimples deepen, and she nods. "We do."

The room glows warm in candlelight and lantern light; in the burning incandescence and flickering shadows they sit six around the table, long past finishing their meal. They stay there hours more, talking, playing cards, spending the time they still have. A can of peaches is opened, and with it Hadeel mixes nutmeg and cinnamon into leftover rice. Dribbling the fruit over the stand-in pudding she uses Daryl's lighter to heat the sugary surface as best she can; though the effect hardly rivals what could have been managed in times gone by, it's a treat they are happy to savor, and more so to share, in the now numbered hours remaining of each other's company.

" _Hey_ ," Daryl nods at Bonnie as at last they break apart and retire for bed late into the night. She pauses in her progress to her set up and waits for him; Daryl steps forward and leans in a bit conspiratorially, "Think you could do something f'r me, b'fore ya'go?"

* * *

The morning they set to leave two days later came far too soon. On the day Beth, Daryl, and Simon walk them to the border of town, into the woods, collecting a hare and two squirrels from the snares for their send off. They walk on with them to the far clearing near the drying stream bed, readying to part. It's not clear how they have come to this — not one among their group of three had been hurt, or sick when the six met that evening in the woods; so too they'd had enough food at the time to continue on just as they were. For no apparent physical need had they stopped, but stop they had, and in that time they'd built relationships, and helped to construct a liveable life. From which now they are walking away. Perhaps they'd needed a restorative, perhaps before pushing onward they'd needed some assurance they weren't the only people living still sane, still decent. No worth will come from endeavoring to decipher the wherefores and whys, the leaving is already upon them, and the rest is already in the past. Certainly in the interim of their stay Hadeel's intermittent night terrors had lessened. Whatever it had been that pulled them from the road, it is no longer enough to keep them. They are going.

The six of them, in-hindsight rendered only an ad hoc formation, had spent the last days in each other's company, working together to divide assets, collect food, and ready gear, but when the final moment comes, it is almost counterintuitive to be standing there, finding the words for a purposeful 'goodbye.' Separating intentionally is becoming so foreign the words barely come. " _Well_ ," Simon starts, having no command of words better suited to the occasion, "good luck."

Walter nods, "To you too, son." He pulls him in for a quick but sturdy paternal embrace. "Stay quick; stay sharp."

"Com'ere, Kid," Bonnie tugs him to her in turn. Simon smiles genuinely, and accepts the hug, returning it with warmth and boyish charm.

Firmly Daryl shakes Walter's hand. "Hope you find who you're looking for," his heavy voice rumbles in earnest. "Y'r _family_."

"Same to you, Daryl. Same to all of you."

"Goodbye, Sweet Face." Bonnie grins at Beth. She extends her hand to her, kisses Beth's palm, then presses it to her belly. "Take care of that little one."

Beth smiles, and glistens. "I'll miss you."

Kissing Beth's cheek, Bonnie's eyes are already on Daryl, "You're next." The short woman turns to him grinning. "Bring it in, Dixon." Daryl's instinct is to shy away but he lets slip a slanted smile and gives in to the goodbye. "Take care of them," she tells him.

" _Yeh_ ," he grunts. "Be safe out there. And, uh," brushing his face with the back of his hand, he nods at her, " _th'nks_."

"Anytime," she nods. Daryl smirks wryly; there will never be any other time.

Releasing Hadeel from the hug he'd pulled her into without hesitating to warn her or gauge her reaction, Simon looks at her, unconcerned with her discomfort with eye contact or close proximity. "You're great," he tells her, which isn't exactly any kind of a goodbye, but they're the words that came to him in the moment, and though he's ten years her junior, it doesn't come off wrong.

"You too," she speaks softly, tentatively reaching out to rub his arm. "Simon." The shadowy woman turns then to Beth. Teary eyed they look at one another, softly and quietly. Faces form the shapes of bravely resolute smiles. "Take care of yourself," she says evenly, with depth, and warmth, and edge.

Beth sniffs, and looks away. "You too." She brushes long, thick, dark hair away from her friend's solemn face. Hadeel reaches and fingers a short lock of Beth's blonde hair. "Be strong." She releases Beth and without prelude stretches to place a swift, unprecedented kiss on Daryl's cheek. She speaks no words, and Daryl does neither, only shrinks back some in the wake of this unguarded moment of connectedness.

"Think that must be it," Walter says, shouldering his pack and checking his firearm. "Better get a move on." There are understated waves and nods of finality, and then three turn and travel one way, and three others ready to move back in the reverse direction.

After kicking at the dirt under his feet, watching the figures fade into the trees, Daryl shoulders the crossbow, heaves a breath, and starts on the path back to town. After him Simon turns back too, then finally, when they're several yards gone already, Beth, with her hand at the hilt of her knife, breathes in, sets her shoulders, and follows.

"Keep up, Greene," the battered, raspy voice she loves so well instructs her. They walk on, noting the dryness underfoot as they go, their every step met with the cold crunch and breakage of the thirsty forest floor.

"Hey—" trudging over the wooded ground eventually Simon breaks the settled silence. Daryl glances at him, registering the kid's raised brow, but does not slow his pace just to listen. "There a p'rticular story behind that thanks y'gave Bon?"

More surefooted than Simon, who's scrambling some to scale the incline they're mounting, Daryl glances over to him. Wordlessly slowing his step some, Daryl tugs up his sleeve, pulling it up past his right inner forearm. There, where it's still red and healing, are the bold but airy script letters of ' ** _B.G._** '

"W _oa_ h–" Simon exclaims in an almost-chuckle. "Tha's n _e_ w?" he queries needlessly as he looks back to Beth, but still trailing some paces behind them her attention lingers with whom they've parted, those now following a different path than theirs; she's not at all minding the exchange between the two figures ahead of her. Turning back from the covert glance he threw in her direction, mutely Daryl pushes down his sleeve again, continuing on. Simon lengthens his steps to stay apace with the hunter. "I'nt her name 'Elizabeth'?"

Instantaneous to the detection, a streamline of intention and action raises Daryl's bow, directs his aim, and fires, faultlessly striking a squirrel just as it'd meant to scuttle up a tree trunk into the safe cover of foliage. Lowering the weapon, Daryl strides agilely forward to pull the impaled thing free from where it's pierced through. He tugs, "'ve never called 'er that."

Simon shrugs, figuring he sees Daryl's point — a name is what it's made to be, the girl has never been anything but _Beth_ to him: quick, and light, and substantive. Through the holocaust of the new world, only the essential self remains, the rest – the outer selves given or donned for the convenience and harmony of family, community, school, and history – burn away. Beth is like that. They all are — the surviving cores of old selves necessarily cast off in ash. In silence, keeping with his companions, wary of walkers, and of all else that may trouble the woods, Simon walks, making room for buried thoughts to fight their way forward. Once more he breaks the silence, and looks to Daryl. "You worried?" _Three is not six. Numbers count now more than ever._

Daryl looks first to him, then glances back at the Beth, still silent, still somber. " _Naw_ ," he grunts, affirming this with a resolute shake of the head. Reloading and nocking the bow, Daryl looks again at the kid, then knots the kill into the line at his belt, and scans their path up ahead. His clear eyes fixed forward, the lines about his eyes warmly crease as his jaw sets, "We're good."

Shielded behind his long shaggy lengths of hair, Simon's pale eyes open wide in his fair face, and look to his friend and comrade in weighted earnestness, "Y'mean that?" He realizes there's no justification for Daryl saying this, nor for him believing it, but believe it he can. It's not hard — Daryl's bravado, his sheer will is catching, particularly for someone looking for conviction.

Daryl's voice is strong in his answering, unharnessed by over analysis or shadows cast by the unknowable future. "We got a better choice?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eek — did this fall flat and not work? ... Argh. I'd always planned to have the two groups separate again at some point, and though I know some readers never trusted the newcomers (a fitting sign of the times — everyone (including audience members) should exist in a state of suspicion until proven otherwise) I never envisioned them as undeserving of trust. However, kind of feeling the push to move forward in the story I think I might have too-unnaturally brought things to a close. Most of this story is plotted out in story points but some chapters are written when they're come upon — filling in the blanks between, as this one was — and I admit I hadn't had this in mind from the start, or at all really until last chapter. If I faltered here I hope to redeem the story again by the next sequence of several chapters. As this is what I came up with and posted, I think it's what I've got to stick with, but if there are things that could be fixed/tweaked/clarified, I'm all ears! Ugh, thanks for sticking around through tough bits!


	60. Chapter 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everybody, you all are the *best*, even when the story falters. Thanks so much for your time and thoughts and responses!

Waiting for them once they've climbed the stairs, once they've returned and turned the knob, are the mattresses. Left behind and empty, now rendered surplus, they lie there as reminders of the new emptiness of the space. Once crossed over the threshold, they three just stare at them, feeling all the more the absence they represent.

"We'll get rid of 'em," Daryl grunts, moving further into the room and shrugging off the bow and his outer layer. Neither Simon nor Beth can quite take their eyes away, a strange fascination harnesses their attention to where their friends ought to be. "Hey–" he nods at them both, "we're okay."

Simon nods first. "Sure." He pushes his hair back and nods again. "Course."

"Greene?" Daryl's looking at her, waiting on her.

"Yeah," she nods. Absently her hand travels to her waist. "We're okay." Her voice is soft telling Daryl what he wants to hear, but not fragile, and not without at least partial conviction.

"Three's enough," Simon asserts gamely. "We keep this town, we wait for rain; we've got this."

Daryl pats him on the back as he moves past, "Good man." He hands Beth a bowl of nuts and wild greens. "Here. Eat."

Beth looks at him, then accepts the dish with resignation. Chewing slowly, her eyes scan the room, now changed to her in some way. "How long will we stay here?"

Daryl stops his work on butchering the two squirrels they've come back with; he looks at her pointedly. "Th _a_ t's whut you're thinking?" Simon's looking too, he's been counting on this place. Not aware of it, not meaning to, he'd been counting on the stability of the apartment and its modest comforts. Despite Beth's initial proscriptions against longevity, he'd come unknowingly to rely on it.

Beth shrugs, as though she hasn't just said something that could shift their whole reality. "We never planned for this to be forever."

"Why?" Simon questions.

" _Now_?" Daryl's eyes falter on her, on the subtle curve beneath her sweaters. "This a good time?"

"I'hm only saying we should talk about it." She sets the still mostly-full bowl aside. "I c'n travel now, I'm fine. Further on it'll be harder. Much harder after it comes."

Simon looks from her to him. "Why would we move?" Understanding there may indeed be better situations out there to find does not diminish the risk of giving up what they are already assured of. He's not that kind of gambler. Holding onto things is hard enough from the start, without adding deliberately throwing them away.

Daryl drives the point of his blade into the cutting board, "We'll t _a_ lk about it," he mutters. Placating her with an outstretched hand, reddened some with animal gore, Daryl's compromise bypasses Simon and the seasoned logic fueling his would-be counter arguments.

Simon knows, above all else, Beth's safety is Daryl's priority. He knows also though that Daryl chagrins to domineer over her, to decide things by just his call alone, stifling her voice. He may in the end often win out over her, and he doesn't shy from ordering her about in small domestic directives — much more noticeably so since the expectation of the baby: 'eat this' 'don't lift this' 'get more rest', but he's loath to not consider _her_ needs, _her_ priorities, _her_ experiences. Simon is certain his own voice carries full weight within this group, but Beth is to whom Daryl intently listens, even when she's saying nothing.

* * *

"He back, yet?" Returned from an in-town water run, Simon passes Beth and unloads three plastic gallon jugs on the kitchen counter.

Nestled into an armchair pulled up to the kitchen table, Beth looks up from the book she's marking, annotating, and highlighting, and shakes her head. "Mm,mm." That morning Daryl had taken up the crossbow and headed into the woods to hunt. He was hoping for some big game, something they could smoke and make last. He's been out for hours, but she isn't counting minutes. Success or no, he'd sworn to be back before sundown and Beth is trusting to his abilities and his word, and not allowing the hours passing to penetrate her piece of mind. There's another hour yet before the sun will disappear; there's plenty of time between then and now. Pen in her mouth, Beth turns her page.

Eyeing her as she earmarks the page, Simon fishes silently through his pockets to covertly place two small objects on the table in front of her before crossing the room to sink into the sofa and tug off his boots. Beth glances up from her notes, looks to the unassuming objects left just within her reach, then looks to him. Kicking at his boots, he nods at her, quietly smiles. "I know you been collectin' 'em." Some time ago Beth had started collecting timers and travel alarm clocks. More than that she's also been breaking the musical mechanisms out of music boxes. She hasn't said why, hasn't even said she's been doing it, she just keeps a small sling-shoulder duffle bag full of them. Beth eyes the two offerings on the table, a kitchen timer and a windup toy that shuffles and bleeps. She looks, but says nothing. "Don't know what you want with 'em, but," he peals off his outer layer, "you'll get every one I find."

Beth's slender fingers reach out to touch one of them, grasping it just a little closer to her on the table. " _Th'nks_."

"Uh,huh," he nods again. Rising up he glances back at her as he crosses to the kitchen for a drink, rubbing his hands to warm them. "Somethin' to do with th' baby?"

Beth's river eyes fix on the mechanism, hold onto it. Her nod is small. "Mm,hm."

She knows, once the baby's come, there'll be no keeping it from crying, not all the time. Babies cry. All babies. Hers will be no different. Every soul still living, they've all had to learn, to adjust, but though the children born in these times will never know another way of life, they are not born knowing this one. They are not born knowing to what they have been brought into. Avoiding noise, keeping silent and still will not not be innate, will not be bred by the times. Beth intends to keep her child from becoming a target, from endangering itself and from endangering the family. If an alarm, or a music organ or any noise making thing that can be thrown, can help to misdirect or to obfuscate her child's cry, Beth will see it done. It may be futile, but she will try. She's never discussed the strategy with Daryl, as he's never discussed with her the supplies he's been working at storing up, formula and powdered milk for one. She knows he's been doing it, but she won't make him admit to it, won't make him face what doing so might portend.

"Ya'know," he starts, chewing at the last of the jerky and pausing to look around the room, "we could probably soundproof these rooms some. Blankets, foam insulation, whatever. We could prob'ly reduce the sounds coming out of here by a lot. Wouldn't hurt with th' temper'ture either." With new eyes Simon surveys the walls, already thinking in terms of materials and practicalities. "Don't know what we'd do about the windows…" Though she's hearing him, Beth doesn't make an answer. She drinks her chamomile tea and turns another page in her book. Unfazed, Simon pulls out the chair beside her and takes a seat. Silently he drums his fingers on the table, then he looks at her. "You really want to leave?"

Marking her place with her highlighter, Beth closes the book, sets it atop the table, and gives him her attention. "Nothing lasts."

"In'nt that a dark outlook for a parent."

"Th' least permanent thing we have is shelter."

His clear eyes stare at her, taking measure of her headspace, of the considerations and experiences fueling and directing her. He swallows. "So, you're calling quits, b'fore it's called on us, that it?"

Beth blinks. "There've got to be communities out there. Settlements. You believe that, don't you?"

"Yeh, sure." He tries again, a little less flippant. "I'mean, yes, there havf'ta be. But, you know," he looks at her, "Beth," again he drums his index finger on the tabletop, "there's a reason we chose not to seek those places out." She looks at him. "Nothing's as impermanent as shelter? Nowhere 's that more true than a place filled with people, supplies, armaments. You've got something you want to hold onto, someone else is going to want it too. Right?"

Beth hadn't been looking for a reminder of the prison and its fall. She's been focusing on her child, on her delivery; not at the forefront of her mind are figures like the Governor or worse. She doesn't think he's wrong, but more and more she's feeling that this place is not her home. It may indeed be what he said: a sort of taking control of a circumstance she can't truly control, but, there's something pushing at her to go. She does not think this is the time to stop listening to herself. Instinct pulls them through.

"What's Daryl's thinking?"

Her head shakes. "He's thinking it over; quietly."

Simon guffaws in an uncensored burst. " _Daryl?_ 'd never peg him f'r quiet."

Beth nods appreciatively, but speaks no word against him. Her fingertips reach and pivot her mug in place. Searching, her eyes rise to him. "You're against it wholly?"

He's got no other move to make but shrug. "I trust you. If you leave, I leave with you."

She touches his hand. "We'll decide together. Promise."

With a quick jerk Simon shifts the hair out of his eyes. "Not worrying 'bout that." He's not a couple, not part of a twosome, but these people are his, these two and their expected child. Even their extended absent family will be his, should they ever find them, just as they two had been fully taken in by his own group. Simon lives with fear, he harbors shadowy doubts, but being forsaken, or overlooked, by Beth Greene or Daryl Dixon is not among them. His trust in them as a group is implicit at this point. And, if they go, if they feel that need – for whatever reason, he will join them. Leaving behind what they've got for nothing more than stark chance is not the move he'd advocate, but he'll go, if they do. He leans against his chair. "Everything we've done here, we c'n do again somewhere else. We bring the hardware, we can do it again." He nods at her. "Do it a hundred times if we gotta."

"... _There's no end point_." With some distance, Beth echoes something Daryl once said to her, shouting at her in the shadows of a town burning down around them in the wake of being robbed and terrorized. There is no finish line, no point at which this all will stop. _This_ is life; even finding their family will not change that fact.

"No–" he confirms. "This is what we get. Gotta live the life we've got." The kid bites at his thumb. "We're not miserable."

"No," she smiles for him. "We're not."

"Got friends. Got family. Got books. Got a baby coming."

"We're okay," she grants.

" _Hey_ –" he asks for her attention. "When this happened, you didn't ever imagine you'd be doing what you're doing now," he nods at her waist, at the birthing book she's so acutely combing through. He doesn't need confirmation that she's years from where she'd started, he knows this to be true. Not from the scars she carries at her wrist does he know it — collectively the whole world had been blindsided. For some time no one could conceive of salvaging from this world of biting tearing death any semblance of normal life; no one thought of finding love, or bearing children. He remembers Daryl's account of the CDC exploding, of the people who died within, unwilling to stage a fight, remembers too all the the folks he'd seen give in. But somehow now here they are, making lives.

"No," she agrees. Even when stripped bare she wears the evidence of her crisis of faith. "I'h think—" she starts, her dimples setting as she reflects "I'h forgot, 'bout everything that came before us — all those people, all those wars, the famines, the diseases, the degradations and inhumanity, slavery an' cruelty, and that through it, humanity surv _i_ ved." Idly her thumb runs through the book's thick edge of page corners. "Daddy used to call it a plague. At the start. Said we've always been afraid of what we don't understand."

"It's not a plague. Not like others."

"No," she affirms. "And it isn't what killed my father, or got my sister taken hostage, or shot dead so many of our friends." Her hand moves softly to her child. "...An' what's out there hasn't taken us. So that's a choice we have." Beth's blue eyes flutter to him, "Right?"

In answer he nods emphatically. "As long's there's life, then you've got to live."

"An' we're doing that." It's nearly a question how she says this, but only nearly. Beth believes in what they're doing, who they are.

Simon winds the plastic toy, but doesn't release it to play through. "Very best we know how." Lifting the mechanism from the table he taps it in his hand against the tabletop.

These moments of running and stockpiling and ransacking and fighting, of fortifying, defending, traveling, and searching, these things strung together compose the architecture of their life. It is not a matter of surviving so much, of getting so far, of enduring just enough, of starting over some number of times, this way of life is all they'll ever know from here. They must make of it what they can, and each remind themselves from time to time they are not in a game of biding time. _Now_ is what they have, a future is what they fight for, and lives worthwhile live in the shapes of burdens shared, griefs and fears known and understood, labors shouldered together, shelters warmed with companionship, laughs that can't be held in, and hopes for an anticipated child. It is truths told, hands held, eyes open to realities, and spirits bolstered. It is change, and adapting.

"Beth," he leans in, "you think there's something out there we'll find? Somethin' we won't regret?" He can't not think of Michael's ashen face, cravenly distorted from its natural self, the cutthroat gash letting out all his life's blood. He thinks of James, the gaping bullet hole that struck him down and lifeless. He thinks of his remaining brothers, vanished into unknown wilderness, into unknown terror.

"When we had been in the prison for some time–" her glance flutters to him "–when we had not just water and food but bedding and changes of clothes, and books and art supplies and gardens, I started to feel like we were home. I started to think that we were safe, that we could have that life forever." Silently he listens, too familiar with this train of thinking. They'd always been prepared to surrender the camp, to leave it behind if they had to, but he'd always thought they'd be together, move on together. He'd believed in their self-created isolationist bubble. "I don't expect that anymore. We can't have that. We c'n have li'ife. We c'n have family. We can't have permanence. This place won't last forever. Maybe there's a settlement to join, someplace strong, maybe there isn't. We won't know if we don't look, we can't find anyone or be found if we stay hidden. This place–" by this she means the apartment, this abandoned town they've claimed "–isn't _here_. Like you said, we c'n build this anywhere. Only th' next time we'll have water."

"'Keep learnin',' is what you're saying."

"'Keep learning. Keep moving.'"

Simon shakes his head with a wry grin of acquiescence. "Guess I should be packing my shit." She looks at him. "No way you're not gonna convince him."

His smile is goodnatured, but she does not return it in kind, she has none of his certitude on this point. "He's more fearful than he lets on."

Still with a trace of a smile, Simon takes measure of this. "In'nt that true for all of us?"


	61. Chapter 61

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience while I've been working on this chapter and my many, many, many school assignments! I can't say how much it means to have regular readers, I truly can't express it, and the support for the story has just been lovely and so, so appreciated. I would probably still write this story even if it had zero readers, but without you all, firstly it would be way less fun, and secondly it might take 12 years longer to complete. (Not an exaggeration, some of my MSCL stuff I have been working on for decades.) I've had, though, a very fanfictiony interim while I've been gone. I finally read Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl (last page had me crying), and I saw Miss Emily perform again (5th time), and gave her a copy of my one shot "Without You: A Requiem" when I met her for the meet and greet. Weird? Probably, I don't know, I'm still a little conflicted, but it's a pretty harmless & loving piece, so I just did it :/ Anyway, here's the next chapter. (I just this week finished one class but now am starting up my crazy intense one that will last through July, and then, maybe, I might be done with grad school(!) which might mean just work, real life, and some more hours in the day for writing! Thank you for reading! Thank you for coming back! Thank you for reviewing!

"Where would we'g _o_?"

Daryl's rumbled question hovers in the air above them, occupying both the spaces between them and the uncharted expanse of the world beyond their four brick walls.

Beth's blue eyes look up at him from beneath the steady fixedness of her dark lashes. "East?" she offers, her conviction malleable. "North?"

Daryl looks at her, his clear eyes keen in the shadow of his knit and heavy brow. He's in no hurry to see them back on the road, exposed and open and suspended by chance, but if it's going to happen, the plan's got to have a hell of a lot more shape to it than that. _East. North._ He makes little effort to mitigate his scowl.

"Don't we gotta figure out where we are? First?" Simon speaks, brokering neutrality by way of reasoned pragmatism.

"B _ee_ n figured," Daryl grunts. "Maps in th' fly shop pinpointed us pretty close. But knowin' tha' don't tell us nuthin' 'bout where there is t' _go_." Here he again looks at Beth.

In answer Simon speaks, though even he doesn't back the suggestion fully, "Whudd'a 'bout a military base?" His cautious open eyes flash sharp and quick between the two of them, like maybe there's some warding off the inevitable "... Think any of 'em are still up?" At times, he can seem so much younger than fifteen, something in his eyes or intonation, or in the way his gamely worldliness doesn't keep him from reaching for the better.

Daryl rubs at his mouth, pulling at his jaw. The line he's drawing on their risk threshold is rigid. "Fort Benning fell," his gravel voice rumbles. "Bon told us 'bout Fort Jackson. With all the overrun high schools an' hospitals and refugee camps we've come upon, and all the military vehicles an' gear we seen appropriated by asshole civilians, can't be many that're standing–" Daryl tugs at his beard, flexes his scarred and calloused fingers "– if any. They weren't prepared for this kind o' thing, an' a lot of people out there weren't lookin' t' be ruled by martial law. H _e_ ll, military thems _e_ lves — whut's in it f'r them t' keep at it? Got their own selves t' look _o_ ut f _o_ r."

Not one easily dampened, Simon tries again, "A farm?" No response comes and Simon looks at them both, at their uncomfortable reactions. "We'd have wells," he offers soberly, despite his near certainty he's already been overruled. "Crops."

"Awfully difficult to monitor, or secure," answers Beth.

"No t' mention clear," Daryl affirms. "Any unclaimed property's gotta be overrun. We ain't got the numbers or the ammo. Can't be done. Not worth what it'll c _o_ st."

"So?" the kid asks, looking at his two companions. "Then what?"

Here Daryl defers to Beth; this is her campaign, he's not sold on their leaving. Here in this place they have relative security, they're hidden from the casual eye, they've got some cache of supplies. Water though... That's been rough. The two rains they finally got added less than two inches to their barrels, and didn't make much of a difference to the river, except muddy it some. Fidgeting his fingers in tireless inaction, he looks at Beth, seeing both her – her physical self as she is right then, and too all that waits ahead of her. She's feeling restless, he gets that. Though she's preparing, in her quiet private ways, for what is coming – burrowing a quiet safe space within herself, insulating it with reserved love and peace, feathering it with unsung songs and the music and warmth of a new mother and the nurturing of a new life – her efforts all are internal, mental, and deep within herself. Daryl gets she's making _home_ a thing within herself, not a place dependent upon these walls; he gets that she's feeling she can't count on what they've got. Events have pushed them all to it; she's been near hardwired to this mode of thinking, igniting in her this drive to action. Daryl understands it, but does not see this as a time to be risking outright gambles. He does not fault her for siding with instinct, but there's no clear resolution to her instinct being at odds with his. He won't argue with Simon though, they do need long term water security. They haven't got that here like he'd figured they would by now. He harbors no yen to face the road again, would never rally behind a motion to move just to move, still there's no faulting Beth for capricious folly, not usually, and certainly not concerning this, making it tough now to just dismiss her. "B _e_ th," his rough voice charges her, "what do you want?"

In the dimming light in the apartment they'd claimed for theirs, Beth looks at them both. Her eyes drift from face to face, feature to feature, from one pair of blue eyes to the other, all the while deliberating and weighing the stakes. There are no guarantees. There's not much left in the way of informed decisions. Leaving would be a risk, no question. She can't just say _leave_ and have that be the final word; she can't take four lives up in just her two hands with the utterance of a single word. What she knows she feels is nowhere near knowing what they'll come up against. Her inevitable answer is certain in its conviction; the path still indiscernible. "I'h want," she starts, "t' stay ahead of what's coming."

" _Yeh_ ," the older one grunts, his narrowed eyes blinking soberly.

"Yeah," the other nods.

They all want that. It would help if they had an inkling to go on. Having had near every move they've made since the turn forced and thrust upon them, choice and agency – though they've often begrudged and mourned their absence – now loom as heavy burdens upon them, taxing, and unwieldy.

* * *

Dawn breaks in muted winter streaks as for the final time they step outside their front door. Little more than three weeks after the others' departure sees them making their own. With a final heavy clamping-shut of the door, they leave it closed and blocked off behind them, then walk away. Stepping into the street with just their three packs is counterintuitive; opening themselves to the vulnerabilities of the open road is not a thing they've chosen lightly. In the end, it hadn't been any argument one of them had made or lost that brought them to this leaving. It had come down to the essential matter of what they could not do without, and in the end that is water. The town is proving too dry to stay. They couldn't continue using what little fuel they have driving back and forth to the stream, and the walk, already lengthy, is made considerably more so and perilous, as to make the most of the journey a person must employ both hands in transporting the water, and in as such not only overtax the body but leave it vulnerable with no weapons in hand. What clinched their exodus though was the fouling of the water. Upstream something's contaminated it, walkers most likely; maybe a spillage of some kind, but whatever the cause, it's not in Beth's head this time and it's made staying finally impossible. Once more their hands are being forced: As low as reserves are, they don't have the time to wait it out. If staying's not an option, they need to be on the road and moving before Beth can no longer easily travel.

Facing running dry before waiting out the fouling, facing, too, running out the impalpable clock looming over them, over Beth, they act, thankful at least it isn't violence that's pushing them out. Out the doors and into the brisk morning air Simon knives the day's' first walker with a curt efficient thrust, Beth shivers and adjusts her pack's straps, Daryl hoists the loaded crossbow, and ten weeks after making the town theirs they head out, together rejoining the road and the trials and terrors that come with it.

Loading as much food, water, gear, blankets, and fuel as they can fit, they pack the boxy Japanese hybrid SUV and settle in, Beth in the back, Daryl at the wheel, Simon riding shotgun. It didn't seem plausible when Simon'd reminded them that he'd never learned to drive. He'd have to learn, but his not knowing precluded anything manual, clinching the decision to leave behind the pickup and camper shell, that and the gas it would take. Left behind, too, is the four wheel drive American SUV, and the compact hybrid hatchback. The Prius had been tempting, gas being as scarce as it is, but Daryl wanted to be sure there was room to stretch out in, should someone among them, namely one in particular, have to; should they all have to, if out there shelter too proves scarce. Buckles clasp tight, car doors close shut, echoing heavy metallic clunks through the empty streets, and Daryl reaches and turns the key. The engine ignites. Daryl's muscled forearm flexes as he grips and spins the wheel, the dark etchings of two letters pulling on his flesh as the arm strains into the tight turn, maneuvering around a careening walker and an old smash up in the road. The vehicle handles well enough, and Daryl navigates to the edge of town. The larger SUV or truck would have ensured better handling of uneven terrain – bodies, dirt roads, debris – and the truck bed and shell would have provided more usable space for travel and coverage, but other factors than the gas shortage and Simon's never having been behind the wheel had to be accounted for. Among their considerations were the eventual repairs any ride they chose would inevitably be in need of; they bypassed then anything Swedish or German, and though American made might make for easier repairs, the US candidates run on more fuel, of which they have none to spare; thus Daryl's handle on Japanese engines – minimally different in most respects – settled the call. In the end they'd fixed on the somewhat odd looking Honda Element. It had been Simon's find.

" _Look_ ," Simon had shown them the night before last, "this is th' one." In the lingering light of dusk Simon then had tugged open the doors, pulling them open like church doors into an opening wider than anything. "Hold on." He hopped in, climbed over the driver's and passenger's seats and flung open the opposite doors in mirror image so that the whole vehicle was then rendered a great steal passthrough. He looked then to Beth and Daryl, a satisfied smile faint in the corner of his drawn mouth, "Watch," he'd commanded. With that Simon pulled some levers, cranked and pushed and pulled at handles, and like nothing the car's whole interior was a flat bed. The grin he wore as he looked up, pushing the hair out of his eyes was unmistakable. "Look," he said, though clearly they saw. "An' we c'n do just one side – someone sleepin', someone driving, someone in back behind th' driver. An' look," his eyes flashed as he again moved to action. With more pushing and pulling, a little heavy breathing, the back seats disappeared into the side walls, opening up the back and the full floor. "So much space." He looked them both in the eye then. "We c'n do this." He then handed over the manual, "Check the mpg; respectable." Daryl had taken it. Beth had watched as he read, then wordlessly nodded. Large as the vehicle is it's less efficient than a smaller hybrid, but it's no gas guzzler, and Simon was right, it would give them space, it give them options. Beth could be safe inside this, comfortable as her time approaches.

The car bumps and bounces over potholes and cracks in splitting asphalt as they drive, over debris and failing roads. Leaving town behind them they make a gamble for the highway. Though it's more likely to be traveled, if their aim is to get away from the contaminated water, to find some place new, maybe find some place viable and potentially stable, then back roads that'll tangle them up in the same cluster of towns and creeks they've been running through won't do them any good. The open road stretches out before them, betraying no evidence of what's out there beyond, giving no sign of deliverance or destruction. The automatic transmission shifts into a higher gear as forward they drive, into what they hope will not be their undoing.

Morning light follows as they drive, reaching out with them and the distance they drive in silence. Beth's cheek presses cooly against the icy window and she wonders if they should soon expect snow. The prospect seems impossible, dry as it's been, but the cold is unmistakeable. Winter and the season's storms may be dragging their feet, but assuredly they're coming, it's all around them, in the grey skies, the chill in the air, the thinning trees. But this day the roads are dry, and clear for driving. Distantly she watches the road pass beneath them.

As they barrel forward Beth tries to think of the last time she'd been in a moving vehicle. Surely just before they'd taken the prison. So long ago. Nearly another life ago – actually, in some ways. Then T-Dog had been with them, and Lori, still carrying Judith. Now they're gone, not just they but everyone, and it's Beth now who awaits a child. So many miles between then and now… She is glad to not be walking. She is thankful for heaters and deep welcoming upholstered seat cushions, but the sensation of being moved forward by no motion of her own is nearly wholly foreign to her by this point. She wonders if she'll be sick. The world runs past them in breathless endless sprints – trees, road posts, crossroads, all already behind them as soon as they come within view. She's sure that they are flying, but she wonders if really they are, if she would have thought so two years earlier when she was still accustomed to it. Faint are the memories of wispy starry nights when she and her friends blared music, driving madly and beautifully into youthful, tamely wild adventures. She recalls Shawn teaching her to drive the farm's old truck, rusted, stiff, and jostling in the beating sunlight. She knows there were once stolen nights with Jimmy spent in cars and in back seats, but so much of that old world has grayed, and faded by this point; in the forefront of her mind are days and nights spent driving with Maggie, Glenn, and her father, following Rick and his family and Carol, following Daryl on that old bike of his brother's. Still so vivid to her are the endless hours spent crouched and hunkered in a trunk with Daryl, sweating the fear and the tension, straining tightly against the silence and the anxiety. He was so close then, the heat from his body radiating against hers, his breath mingling all those many taut unquiet minutes with hers, his sweat pooling as hers did, his muscles straining as did hers to be ready, flexing against the wait and the weight of that waiting, all that long and terrible night and well into the morning – there with her, but so far away. He wasn't talking to her then, he was only looking past her, only seeing loss, only seeing danger, barely able to see survival. He'd been walled off, from her, from the world, hard and impenetrable. But things had shifted since then, and the life lived since that moment now commands the largest real estate of her mind. _Daryl. Simon. The baby. The future._

Early dawn by this point has broken into day, but Beth, due both to discomfort and anxiety, had not slept much through the night, and amidst the inaction of the car ride the deprivation catches up with her. Settling in, she allows the hum of the engine and the vibrations of the window frame against her leaning head to lull her to a quiet calm. Her eyelids grow gradually heavier with every blink and flutter. Ahead of her, drift back the occasional voices of Simon and Daryl, one learning from the other how to read the road, how to read the control panel, how to keep control at high speeds, or what to do if the car should spin out. Simon in turn reads some from the manual, the bits extolling on how best to maximize the hybrid engine's efficiency, while behind them Beth watches the sky, distantly listening, and taking in the ever shifting view of trees and foliage, blurring together in a long streak cutting through the sky, erasing the roadside carnage just below her eye line. All day they drive. Then further.


	62. Chapter 62

"Not so hard," Beth speaks softly, her instruction airy in the quiet of the car. "Don't hav'fta grip like that." There's a harmless lazy smile on her lips as she talks to him across their small distance, "No need f'r white knuckles." Beside her Simon loosens his grip, flexes his straining fingers and regrips the wheel, looser, as though he were not doing it for the first time. At her words, and in concentrated measure he sucks in air through his parted lips, breezing in quick through the spaces in his teeth. His rigid shoulders slacken. "You're doin' great, you know."

Simon shakes his head in a rueful chortle, betraying both the tension and pleasure jointly derived from this first foray behind the wheel. Still smiling wryly he glances into the rearview mirror to the backseat where Daryl dozes with arms crossed, his bearded jaw dropping down to his chest. All day Daryl had driven them, from early dawn to late in the afternoon. When Simon relieved him, Beth, more rested than either, sent Daryl to the back and took on the driving instruction herself. Wedged soundly between the seat and door, she sits with feet raised, watching the road and the fifteen-year-old navigating it. "It'll be dark soon," she observes, looking up through the windshield into the waning light, orange and faded and grey beyond the wooded tree line, "wanna switch soon?"

Simon's eyes do not falter from the road. "Something going to change after dark?"

Beth smiles slightly. "Guess not."

"I mean, the way th' car works – engine, steering, forward drive, an' all that? That all stays th' same?"

Beth eyes him, and even without the slightest crack in his demeanor she gets he's taunting her. " _Mrhm_ ," her eyes roll. It's not true to his nature to be sardonic, but he wields it well when he takes it on.

The wry grin spreads broadly across his young face, still intent and focused on the road. "My eyes aren't going to suddenly stop working in the dark, are they?"

" _Okay_..." her slow drawl acquiesces. "Never mind. Drive till mornin'."

Now Simon breaks away to glance briefly at her. "Is that the plan?"

Her response is less than immediate. "Think we drive till we find a reason to stop."

Simon nods. His right eye finds her in his periphery, "We'll know what that is? When we see it?"

Her eyes trained ahead, Beth reaches back absently, tugs her hair where it grows behind her ear. "... Definitely."

Simon checks the speed gauge, though Beth had already set the cruise control; his grip shifts again, and onwards they drive.

Before the light fades entirely Simon pulls over. Daryl rouses and they three stretch, relieve themselves, fill up on gas, and pull down from the roof the solar oven Simon had rigged to strap to the roof. For the length of the day their dinner cooked itself, soaking up heat though the air was chilled and biting. Unclamping the iron oven they're met with bubbling, savory stew. Simon had been certain it'd work if he could only assure it would stay put; it did, and his vision and efforts made for a hot meal, decently flavored, and sturdy enough. It's not exactly hunger they appease with each lifted spoonful but something close to boredom. The hot meal burns away some of the monotony and tedium of sitting cooped up for hours, motionless, and without destination. It will only last so long, but the respite is welcome while it's with them.

Daryl chews, spits out out a tough bit of something from the corner of his mouth, and swallows. "Got some mileage under your belt t'day, huh?" he nods easily at Simon. "Feel good?" His mouth overly full Simon can only look at him, eyes wide, and bright. Here Simon chews and nods. "Feel a'little more a man f'r it?" Daryl smirks in good nature.

Simon swallows, unperturbed by Daryl's harmless prodding, "M'ybe," he nods, his quick eyes flashing. "'d help if m'voice dropped some."

Daryl chuckles and shovels in another large spoonful of stew before his smile fades. "Y'r doin' al'right with that."

Refastening her let-out belt, Beth returns from behind the car, and leans against the driver's side door, looking at the both of them. "We should get going if we're going to."

In answer Simon drinks what's left of the broth in his bowl. Daryl shakes his head and crosses to her, "Le' me."

Beth breathes in the chilled air and looks out into the falling darkness. "I'm awake," she counters plainly. Softly her hand reaches out to the open flap of his leather winged cut, tugging on it, just to have him in hand. "Y'can't cut me out of the rotation just t'do it. Sleep more; you'll be next on deck."

Daryl eyes her, smirks, and licks his fingers, "Yes, Ma'am."

In the car, driving once again, Beth now behind the wheel, and Daryl already back asleep, Simon looks at her from the passenger seat, fighting to reign in his pleasure in what he's about to do. "Got you something."

The delay in any sort of further indication or action on his part prompts Beth to be the one next to speak, "Yeah?" She spares a slight glance in his direction. In the darkness Beth sees he's so pleased with himself. The giddiness of him elicits a small giggle from her. "What?"

"Okay–" Simon steadies the anticipation. He bends and reaches into the pack at his feet, producing from it a black canvas binder of some sort. "The fruits of a side project I campaigned our last couple days in town." Beth eyes it, but she can't guess what to expect. Duly gratified he's piqued her interest, Simon tugs audibly on the stiff and stubborn zipper, then pulls open the folder with ceremony. It takes a second, several, as her eyes shift from the road to it then back. She can't quite make it out, and as such her reaction's withheld, despite knowing he awaits it. Then something glimmers, and the connection is made.

Though she wouldn't have predicted her reaction she wells in tears. Something between a gasp and a giggle escapes her lips before she speaks, warmly, with genuine affection. "Simon–"

"Figured you would like it," he says, bringing down the collection of CDs to his lap. "Figured we could use 'em."

"Absolutely," she smiles.

"Want me to read 'em off? I tried t'get good ones – y'know, desert island kind of mix? I don't know all of 'em, but went with standards, y'know? The ones you know you've heard of but never heard? I dunno, m'ybe you have."

With a spark of brightness Beth brushes at the moisture at her eye. "How many are there?"

"Case holds seventy-two."

At this she laughs. "Famine then feast. Better not read them all. Start with the first couple my'be."

"Right," he nods. "M'kay…" He squints in the darkness. "C'n barely read…"

"Never mind. J'st choose one. Hit or miss."

Dutifully Simon flips through the plastic sheathes, stops about a third of the way through, and pulls out a dark CD from the top right slot. He makes no effort to take note of any markings, just pushes it in. The stereo whirs to life, flashing on a dim electric light. The screen displays "Track 01", then, reaching out from another world, begins the jangling upbeat strumming of guitar. And then, after some bars, a voice.

_I am on a lonely road_

_and I am traveling_

_traveling, traveling_ –

Beth cries. So full and broken is her heart all at once, in the best and moved way. Save for the people populating her life, nothing moves her heart like music, nothing sways or consoles or mines her soul as does the strumming of guitar strings, the playing of piano, the sound of emotion made audible, visceral, through voice. For the whole of her life music has been her second language, speaking both through it and letting it speak her truths for her when her own words came up short. Since the change she never let it die, never let it fade completely from her life, but for so long, the only songs were hers.

_I wanna be strong,_

_I wanna laugh along,_

_I wanna belong to the living–_

_Alive, alive,_

_I wanna get up and jive–_

The honeyed music, warm and golden like summer, like magic, fills the car, fills their ears, their hearts, their hopes. It is somber, playful, and jubilant all at once. They can't stop listening to the sweet, high, earthy tones of the singer.

"You know who this is?" Simon asks somewhere in the second verse.

"Mm,hm," Beth nods, not just yet ready to speak, to break the spell. "... It's Joni Mitchell."

"You know her?"

Again Beth nods. "I know this album. _Blue_." Deeply she breathes in, making room for the laid away past. "It was my mother's. She used to say it was the perfect album."

"So–" Simon looks at her with reserve, hesitant to tread too heavily or crassly on her private memories, "success?"

" _Simon_ –" she reaches to grip and clutch his shoulder "– _beyond_."

The track switches in time to another, slower and more somber than the first, a lonely sweet voice and a single rich piano. Beth, feeling in this hearing the convergence of present and past, needlessly runs her two palms across and down the wheel, a sort of grounding to this place, this moment in time, this collection of companions. Daryl dozing the while behind them, she drives, and she and Simon listen, as through the humble unassuming efforts of a piano, six strings, and a haunting contralto, the lethal rotting world transforms into something brighter, freer, and altogether less vicious. Soft music fills the night, more substantially than what merely fills their one small vehicle, which, alone on this lone road stretching forward and back through darkness and space, seems very much like it could be a stand-in for the whole of the living world; like this one mobile microcosm, alive with forgotten songs, could indeed be all that's been left breathing – spared, untouched, and in unprovoked isolation.

If only feeling thus made it so.


	63. Chapter 63

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big WELCOME to all the new readers! And huge THANK YOUs to all the long time regulars!

The album played out while Simon, who's been up since before dawn, faded slowly into sleep. "He's out," Daryl utters from the back. Startled, Beth's eyes flash to the rearview mirror, she hadn't realized he was up, hadn't realized he'd been watching the road as she drove it. She looks then to her right. There, pressed against the door and a balled sweater he wedged in between his head and the car, soundly dozes Simon. "Pull over." Beth looks to Daryl again through the mirror. Whether his intention is to relieve Simon or to relive her is unclear, but wordlessly she pulls over regardless, willing to relinquish the driving to Daryl if he means to take it. Pulling over onto the gravel shoulder (one more action of countless now done only from habit than any lingering necessity) the boxy four-doored vehicle bumps and lurches then slows – as she hadn't been driving very quickly to begin with – easily to a smooth stop. "Go'on," he mutters when the car's at a full stop and he's unclicking his seat belt, "switch with th' kid." Beth stretches, rubs her eyes, then undoes her own belt. Certainly she could push herself further, but in truth the monotony of the unlit road and the late hour were wearing on her, and both her mind and eyes had been growing cloudy in the passing miles. She isn't used to driving any longer, and the road was beginning to blur before her; giving the wheel over to Daryl is not a loss. With three to drive, no destination and no timeline to labor under, there's no need for any of them to push themselves, and at least in regards to driving, Beth feels she's nothing to prove. Daryl would fault her if she stayed on just for pride, keeping him on the sideline while she dug in just for stubbornness; she'd fault herself. Exhaustion helps no one, neither does false pride. This is not the moment to prove herself, this moment doesn't matter.

With a whistling zip her unfastened seatbelt pulls in quickly, slapping hard and fast against the door frame. The warmth of the car had been lulling her to drowsiness but the brisk Southern air jolts her straight awake when she cracks open the door. Climbing out, she pulls down her sweater sleeves over her fists and stands inside the shelter of the open door, stomping her feet to stretch and keep warm. Beth wonders where exactly they are. They'd spent most of the day in the car, and though these many hours might have easily taken them straight out of Georgia by this point, indeed they have not. They'd begun the morning on the highway, and though they'd been on and off interstates all day their being not on the run so much as on the hunt by no means kept them stuck to them exclusively. They'd spent large portions of their time at slower speeds, pulling into towns, into smaller towns, down roads and byways, surveying for prospects. They'd stopped to fill up on water, they stopped too to hunt. They'd surveyed for wells, for water, for what they couldn't find from the highway. Aside from scouting so too had they on occasion been pushed off their course on main roads by roadblocks and by walkers. They'd traveled in starts and stops, in double backs and detours and tangled matrices of streets and developments, prospects and busts. Their day, much like everything since the turn, had been anything but a straight path.

Behind her the car shakes as Daryl pushes open the rear door and climbs out, grunting some as he does. He spits to the ground, pulls the crossbow out from behind Simon's seat, glances at the stars, then moves a little nearer to her. Blowing hot breath on his hands Daryl looks over them to her as he rubs them together. "How you doin'?" Beth nods distractedly, breathing in the crisp chilled air. Her breath is visible before her lips. Daryl glances at her, "Y'cold?"

"Th' car is warm."

"Hm," he grunts with a quick nod. "Wull, go ahead, g't round, g't inside." Beth pulls close her sweater and moves to head round the front of the car to the passenger door but Daryl reaches and pulls her to him as she makes room, moving out from the driver's seat for him. He pulled her to him, taking hold of her by her belt loop; hooking her in he tugs her close, never minding that their two open doors are letting out much of the warm air. He stands tall and sturdy before her; bringing both hands to her he brushes the fair hair back from her brow, and holds her face, fondly and softly in his not unwarm hands, rubbing lightly at her cheek. Though he'd urged her back into the car he only lingers there with her in his hands. His head drops down over her so that he is so close, so very near, and present. He leans into her, attentive. Actively his eyes study her. He does not seem to blink. The heat from his body and the nearness of his lips seem to lure her head up towards him, her eyes locking with his. Her parted lips bide their time, readying for the impending moment of contact. There in the darkness by the side of an unknown road she waits, and studies for the countless time the shapes and lines and shadows of his face, rugged, worn, and beautiful. In the silence of the night, disturbed not even by the chirping or whirring of insects and the wild – too cold, maybe – his low voice rasps and rumbles like the only sound in the world, sweeter somehow than the music, more grounded than the earth. His eyes never break from her face. "How's that song go?" His two battle tested hands cradle her face as he leans ever closer to her, towering above her, "'Could drink a case o'you'?" His eyes fall gentle on her, his thumb brushes softly at her cheek. "'An' still be on my feet.'" His voice softening there as it does may once have been a betrayal of his truest feelings for her, but if still secrets exist between them, none are that he loves her. So far gone is the instinct to keep that from her. Indeed he could drink a case of her, there is no getting his fill of Beth Greene. Never.

 _Beth—_ Such a small thing she is, even still. There can be no superlative of her, never too much or too long with her. He'd never before jealously guarded his life; in the old times with Merle, even with Rick and the Atlanta survivors, he'd hadn't been exactly ready to die, but he had been reckless and never had a thing concrete to hold on for. Now he wants more, so much more with her, with their child. He would die for them without question, but everyday he feels he has more to live for. He'd found that with Rick, with Carol, with Hershel, but so much more with her. He hadn't known he'd had it in him to be the man he is for her. It isn't that he hadn't had hope without her, he had. Hadn't it been him all those days, all those miles searching for Sophia? Hadn't he fought as hard as anyone to get out for the CDC before that countdown claimed them all? Hadn't he backed Rick all those times he'd insisted they'd find a place? It'd been him who'd time and time again trusted Rick, giving him space after Lori, not intervening, twice, when it had been just him and the Governor. He'd brought in the people from Woodbury, all the families and the travelers in from the road. He'd known Judith would survive. He'd been strong without her, he'd been brave without her, at times, he'd even been vulnerable without her. He hadn't needed Beth to keep him going, to keep his eyes fixed forward, he could do that on his own. Even after the prison, after Hershel and all their losses, Daryl hadn't given in, but all of that – from Sophia to Judith to all the others – it had been something separate from him. All that time he'd been on the outskirts – a contender in the conflicts, a leader even, but in another way a bystander. He loved the group, as much as he'd loved his own brother, but all that time he'd guarded his heart, guarded what was scarred and beneath the surface. The distance he maintained kept him part of it all but not. He was part of the group, and later a part of the family, but so too had he always been apart from the others, in a way that couldn't even be seen by the end. He had been his whole life. This remove was the only thing that'd let him follow Merle into the woods that day when his loyalties were split. Beth had shattered that – the walls, the distance. Slight and unpresuming as she is, she breached every defense he had. Beth Greene, little and stubborn and strong and bright and so damned clear eyed, she'd stood toe to toe with him, hadn't flinched, hadn't seen him as the grown product of a broken kid. She'd looked him in the eye, seeing nothing but the man he was before her, and she'd held on. She hasn't let him sink away, hadn't let him buck and bolt. She'd held on with him through the grief, through the bitterness, through the fear and the wretchedness, and with her he is _in_ it, _with_ her, no longer able to view himself as something other, someone to lead the vanguard with significantly less to lose. His neck is in with hers, together holding out for the good moments as they come. Somehow he's been pushed to the forefront of his own life, in it deep, with so much more to lose, and so much more to fight for than he'd ever envisioned for himself.

He holds her small upturned face, cold at the nose and still childish cheeks, but warm beneath, warm in the tucks of her hair and in the slopes of her neck. He doesn't break away from her, held by the open, steady way she's looking up at him. _Beth_ … No, there would never be enough of being with her. More looks, more touches, more talks, more heartbeats, more breaths. More. There can be no letting go. They are stopped here on the road meant to be switching places, but he's in no hurry to pull himself away from her. The electricity field spanning the small space between them quivers and quickens with a current of awakened anticipation, and wanting. His lips press to hers and the hands he's got on her pull her close, enwrap her; loathe to have to release her he breathes her in. Taking hold of this stolen moment with him, loving all that he is to her, Beth draws him in. Her mouth on his is warm in the cold night's air. Her lips against his, his tongue brushing lightly with hers, ignited by the tug of her cool fingers in his hair, he leans into her, hips to hips, driving at some complication of desire and frustration, losing his breath in her completely.

Standing there, surrounded by nothing but a black sky pierced through by an infinite sprawl of stars, Daryl does not recognize himself. In unsecured territory, likely hostile, not brandishing weapons nor poised to fight, not minding the larger fight but minding a girl, minding his heart, minding his desires over his instincts, Daryl is other than himself. No way he would have tolerated behavior such as this when the group was all together, still on the road. Putting self before safety, it's stupid, it's careless, least ways selfish, and he never used to cloud what was right and needed being done with what he wanted. He never used to think past survival, past keeping his head down, eyes forward, and head straight, but then Beth happened. Beth happened before he knew anything was happening, before he realized something shifted. Beth happened, changing everything. Instead of fighting, instead of mutely keeping his head down and self shut off, maintaining a secure distance from all around him, he's there with her, holding out hope for the future, building a family, opening himself to love, to being open. Different from what he once was he kisses her, his back to the night, bow slung back over his tattered wings. Beth's hands tangle in his hair and in the leather laces of his cut and she draws him in, like she does, like only she ever has, like it isn't in him to buck away, bristle, or shut down. With her he does not do that, not any longer. With her there can be moments such as this, brief spells when fear and combat are not foremost on his mind. Beth, small, and his, and tough, and far from something to flinch from has turned this wicked world on its ear for him. It's no less terrible, no less lethal, but she buoys him above the muck, above the fray, above the evil dark shit that pulls a person down. Once he could do it for himself – when he was lighter, not so many connections, not so many ties and obligations, people he's beholden to, would live for, die for – but time passed, relationships were forged and sometimes lost, he's come to need her. "Girl," he breathes into her head as she holds herself to him, tucking her face into the warm nook in his bearded neck.

Inside the car, most likely chilled by the winter air passing through the open doors, Simon breathes in quickly, shifts, and tucks into himself as he works to stay asleep. They both look backwards, shifting from their fleeting embrace. Beth sniffs in the cold air, rubbing at her frozen nose. "We should g't goin'."

Daryl sniffs as well, brushing hair back again from her face before he plants a kiss on her brow. "Yeh."

He shuts the door he'd stepped out from, climbs into the driver's seat and watches Beth cross to the passenger side. " _Simon_ ," she whispers as she pulls open the door.

"Sy," Daryl rumbles, reaching over and nudging the boy where he sleeps. " _Kid_."

Simon jerks awake groggy and mussed. Bleary eyed he looks to Daryl beside him. " _Wha-at's up_?"

Daryl jerks his head toward the back. "Take a break. Th' girl's takin' over." Simon yawns, rubs his eyes, and still half asleep he nods, unbuckles, and crawls into the backseat. Beth climbs in, shuts the door behind her, and passes back the balled up sweater to Simon.

"Keep it," he breathes, already mostly back asleep. Beth does, and settles in.

Glancing first at Simon and then at Beth, Daryl locks the doors then starts the engine, pulling back onto the road. He drives, turns up the heater, and takes a swig from his canteen. Gripping the wheel he looks over at Beth, still awake, watching both him and the desolate road. "We're here ag'in," he tells her. "Back." Daryl's eyes focus on the road ahead, the 'back' to which he refers. Reaching out to her he takes hold her ankle, rubbing it as he steers one handed.

"No," she counters him, speaks softly, "we're not 'back'; we've never been here b'fore."

They're both right. After so long they are back on the road, back in a car, driving again without destination, but circumstances are not what you they were. She was little more than a kid then, and they weren't together. They weren't soon-to-be parents, and the world had been so different. In so many ways it could break their hearts to count. His hand releases her ankle and moves to her abdomen, remaining there softly.

"We good?"

"Good," Beth breathes, holding his hand in hers.

He looks at her, blinks. He looks back to the road, clears his throat. "We'll find someplace," he rasps.

Beth's eyes are on him, having no need to make reference to the world beyond their vehicle, beyond their family. "I'h know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is hardly started and it's already all tangled and complicated, meaning the next post may be some time from now. Thank you for hanging in in the meantime! Hearing from you means everything! :) Hope you all are well, and happy graduation to anyone who's got one this time of year!


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